Gears of War: E-Day is the first new Gears game in seven years, and it arrives with a full campaign that trades back and forth between highs and lows. The combat is excellent, the arenas are stunning, and the story behind Emergence Day is doing real work. But the pacing sags badly between set pieces, and the open-world exploration is thin enough to make you rush past it. This is a game that looks and feels great, but whose plot keeps getting in its own way.
The campaign runs roughly 14 hours, and it covers the events of Emergence Day, the moment 14 years before the original 2006 game when the Locust Horde broke through the ground and laid siege to humanity. Marcus Fenix and Dominic Santiago, veterans of the Pendulum Wars, find themselves fighting a guerrilla war on home turf against an enemy they barely understand. That setup sells the stakes well, even if the execution around it stumbles.
The Look And Feel Of Kalona
The game is at its best when you are moving from cover to cover, dodging fire across massive arenas. The spaces range from towering cantilever bridges to sprawling hotel lobbies and crumbling airfields. The Locust sinkholes pop up left and right, and the city of Kalona itself looks like a rust-belt industrial center in its heyday. It is a gorgeous stage, and the combat lets you move through it with real freedom.
Being able to go prone behind cover while debris flies adds a layer of satisfaction. The enemy AI is occasionally underwhelming, and the new Locust monster types did not impress much, but the core cover-based combat remains strong. The game leans on the series’ classic formula, and it executes it well.
The Open World Problem
Where the game stumbles is in the space between set pieces. Marcus and Dom are joined by former Gear Mags Carter and a rookie coms officer named Lucas Reyes, but the interactions between them are hollow. The plot skims over war-fueled trauma and backstory, and the player spends a lot of time patrolling Kalona, picking up optional objectives and collectibles that feed into a gear-mod system. None of it lands with much weight.
The pacing suffers badly here. The game sets up moments of tension and spectacle, then dissipates them with dull exploration and dutiful grumbling about “shit rolling downhill.” The plot and character interactions take a backseat to everything else as Bravo Squad toils between objectives. The payoff of unexpected story beats never quite arrives, and the character arcs feel thin next to the combat arenas they sit beside.
Playing On Xbox Series S
The review was conducted on Xbox Series S, and the experience was far from ideal. The game runs at 30fps, and there were frequent sections where things stuttered and chugged, especially during transitions between checkpoints and action-filled cutscenes. It is the closest the reviewer has felt to having a “last-gen” experience on their Series S. The reviewer was content to stick mostly to playing in quality mode for the campaign, though the technical rough edges remained visible throughout.
That is a notable detail, since it means the weakest parts of the game were tested on hardware the reviewer describes as good enough but far from ideal.
What Works Best
The best moments in Gears of War: E-Day are the ones you will remember. The arenas are large, varied, and built for movement. The game knows exactly what it does well, and it delivers on that promise again and again.
What Drags The Most
The worst moments are the ones that drag. The open-world exploration is thin, the pacing is uneven, and the story keeps deferring its big beats to the next arena. That is a real problem for a game this long, because it means stretches of the campaign feel like filler rather than payoff.
What Needs Work
The list of flaws is shorter but no less important:
- Weak storytelling and underdeveloped characters
- Bumpy pacing that drags between set pieces
- Bland sandbox exploration that feels like filler
- Optional objectives and collectibles that add little weight
- Occasional stutters and frame drops on Xbox Series S
None of these are fatal, but together they keep the game from reaching its full potential.
The Bottom Line
Gears of War: E-Day is a game that succeeds in moments and fails in stretches. The combat is excellent, the arenas are stunning, and the world-building behind Emergence Day is doing real work. But the story keeps getting in its own way, and the pacing sags badly between set pieces. It is a game that will leave you wanting more of the highs and less of the lows.
The multiplayer goes live with an early-access period starting October 1, with private lobbies and ranked mode arriving later in the month. That content could go a long way to making the overall package feel more like an overwhelming success. For now, the campaign stands as a mixed bag, a string of battle victories that have not yet won the war.
The old-school spirit of the franchise burns bright here, and the moment-to-moment combat is genuinely satisfying. But the overall experience falls short of greatness. It is a game worth playing, and a game worth talking about, but it is not a game without serious flaws.
Source material: “The Gears Of War: E-Day Campaign Is Full Of Highs And Lows,” Kotaku.
Get the Notebook.
The day's best stories and every fresh verdict, in plain English, in your inbox by seven. One email a day, no more.