Even just an hour with Gears of War: E-Day's explosive campaign left me
hungry to fill more E-holes across its semi-open world

Date:
Tue, 25 Aug 2026 20:00:00 +0000

Ive only played an hour of Gears of War: E-Days campaign and Im already
hooked on its stunning visuals and bombastic action.

Does E-Day reinvent the wheel? No, at least if the two missions
that Ive played are anything to go by, but everything that makes Gears of War good is present and accounted for.

My hands-on kicked off at the start of Act 2 of the campaign, with the fictional city of Kalona still grappling with the early stages of the mutant Locust invasion. Series hero Marcus Fenix and his rag-tag team of survivors, which includes long-time ally Dominic Santiago along with newcomers Mags Carter and Lucas Reyes, are holed up in the besieged city hall. There are murmurings of a gigantic creature the group has just taken down presumably a boss fight at the end of the previous chapter and youre quickly drafted into the military effort to take back the city. Your first goal is to
head to a nearby Thrashball stadium (a familiar in-universe sport that looks like a weird hybrid of football and rugby), which involves traversing the crumbling streets and crossing a giant mechanical bridge. Obviously, things arent so simple with countless Emergence Holes (or E-holes for short)
opening and spewing out waves of foes as you make your way over.

Locust enemies are aggressive and, while they dont pose much threat in isolation, can employ some pretty formidable tactics. The basic
rifle-wielding drones will stick to cover like glue, popping up
intermittently to spray your team with bullets. They can be hard to keep
track of in large numbers, so be careful that those armed with shotguns dont manage to flank you, as a few close-range hits will shred your health bar in seconds.

Tossed grenades and groups of fast-moving, dog-like Feral Wretches keep the pressure up by forcing you to change cover frequently, preventing fights from devolving into opposing sides taking pot shots at each other across the battlefield.

The steady introduction of new enemy types, from lethal snipers to giant bazooka-equipped brutes, kept the handful of encounters I experienced fresh with some interesting scenarios, like covering another squad located on the other side of the bridge, thrown in there too. Its classic
Gears of War action, elevated by meaty gunplay.

Chipping away at enemies from a distance is relatively ineffective and
awkward (unless you manage to scoop up one of the powerful Breechshot rifles from a fallen enemy sniper to pop a few heads), but the up-close action is beautifully slick. The Gnasher Shotgun remains an absolute beast, with
blowing an enemy in half a wonderfully satisfying reward for pulling off the perfect flank.

Once Fenix gets his hands on a prototype chainsaw bayonet, you know that I
was sawing practically anything in my path to pieces in a glorious explosion of gore and viscera.

The latter portions of my hands-on had me tackling one of the
games new open district missions, and its about what you would expect from
the name. Youre dropped into a large chunk of the city and granted the
ability to explore it freely with a little map to guide you. It doesnt feel like a true open world as youre very much guided towards the next objective, though there are some optional side missions to discover and plenty of collectibles to scoop up.

The mission in my preview was a basic wave survival challenge that had me hunkered down in a car dealership with some non-player character (NPC) soldiers. Its not the most exciting concept, and Im hoping some of the side content available in the full game is more adventurous. I didnt feel like my time was wasted, however, as completing it unlocked some powerful weapon
mods.

Modding your guns is a new feature introduced in E-Day (presumably somewhat inspired by the similar upgrade system in strategy spinoff Gears Tactics ) that lets you customize your gear by improving stats such as magazine size or fire rate. It can sometimes even change how an entire gun operates, for example, having your pistol fire in a two-bullet burst at the cost of long-range accuracy. The whole formula feels a bit
retro, which is far from a bad thing. You dont really get decent story-driven shooters these days, and the promise of a roughly 14-hour campaign alongside
a suite of multiplayer modes to dive into afterwards is the kind of
experience I crave as a palate cleanser between mega live-service releases.

It definitely helps that E-Day looks simply amazing from a technical perspective. Xbox has developed a bit of a reputation for delivering some visually stunning titles this generation (look at the borderline photorealistic fidelity of Senua's Saga: Hellblade 2 ), and E-Day is shaping up to be the best-looking yet. Its art direction blends 1980s retro charm
with grand Gothic architecture and a distinctly alien, unfamiliar edge, all presented with ray-traced lighting, geometrically complex models, and
flawless texture work.

I found myself poring over every detail, soaking in the signs and posters advertising services, the little notices stuck to the front of shops, the names of all the train lines in a subway station; its a lovingly crafted
world that truly feels lived in.

If I had one complaint, its that it all doesnt really look much like the
world of the first Gears of War . That game is admittedly set more than a decade later, on a different part of the planet, but its cars and buildings
in particular seem so much more modern than those of E-Day that it just
doesnt line up in my head. Were companies still making new vehicles and updating their storefronts while hundreds of vicious creatures were pouring out of the ground?

This is nitpicking, of course, and its not hard to suspend your disbelief
when its in the service of some truly beautiful design. Im excited to see
even more when Gears of War: E-Day releases for PC and Xbox Series X and Series S on October 6, 2026.

Link to news story, including IMAGES: https://www.techradar.com/gaming/xbox/even-just-an-hour-with-gears-of-war-e-da ys-explosive-campaign-left-me-hungry-to-fill-more-e-holes-across-its-semi-open -world

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* Origin: capitolcityonline.net * KY, USA (42:17/7)