Gears of War has always been the second child in the Xbox household. While Halo was getting straight A’s and having its report cards proudly displayed on the fridge, Gears was off in the other room doing its own thing, quietly building a respectable following without needing all the attention. But when the golden child started bringing home failing grades, Xbox suddenly remembered it had another kid worth bragging about. That attention didn’t last long, however, and Gears was eventually left alone again. Now, with the bills piling up, the parents arguing behind closed doors, and nobody quite sure what the future holds, Xbox has decided to bring Gears back into the spotlight. Yeah, things aren’t stable at the Xbox household at the moment.
Which brings us to today, and given how things have been going lately, this might be the last Gears of War we see for quite some time. That brings us to Gears of War: E-Day, the second prequel in the series, taking us back to the first 72 hours of the Locust War. It’s an event fans have been waiting nearly two decades to experience firsthand, whether through novels or an interactive medium. And for the most part, the developers have managed to recapture the darker, more oppressive atmosphere of the original Gears of War, while building upon what they learned from Gears of War 4 and Gears 5. The biggest difference is that this time we aren’t fighting in the aftermath of the apocalypse. We’re watching the apocalypse happen. Marcus Fenix and Dom Santiago have barely finished one war before another literally bursts out of the ground. Kalona starts out looking like a place where people have jobs, homes, and things to do tomorrow. Then the Locust arrive, and suddenly tomorrow doesn’t seem like much of a guarantee. That’s where E-Day is at its strongest. The original trilogy showed us the ruins of civilization; this one lets us see what was lost, making even familiar enemies feel more threatening. It also gives Marcus and Dom room to be characters, even as everything around them falls apart. You know humanity survives this first attack, but that doesn’t mean everyone standing next to you will.
As for the actual shooting, The Coalition understands that you don’t need to reinvent Gears of War to make it fun again. Sliding into cover, landing a perfect active reload, and turning a Locust into something that would make a butcher uncomfortable still feels fantastic. The difference is how much easier it is to move around. Being able to jump, vault, and use more vertical environments makes firefights feel less like you’re glued to one conveniently placed concrete barrier. The weapons have the same ridiculous weight to them, with enough punch behind every shot to remind you why this series made its name on chainsawing monsters in half. New gear and upgrades give you more room to experiment, but thankfully the game never forgets that its greatest strength is putting you in a desperate situation and handing you a shotgun. Visually, E-Day is ridiculous, and I mean that as a compliment. Built with Unreal Engine 5, it can go from an ordinary city street to absolute destruction without losing the little details that make the place believable. The lighting, cramped interiors, and sound design also restore the horror influences that gradually got buried under bigger explosions in the sequels. There’s a real difference between shooting an enemy you’ve fought a hundred times before and hearing one moving somewhere you can’t see. E-Day understands that sometimes the thing hiding around the corner is scarier than the giant monster filling the whole screen.
That doesn’t mean every decision works. The larger areas and optional activities are a holdover from Gears 5 that don’t always suit a story about the world ending right now. It’s hard to feel an urgent need to save people when you’re stopping to look for another weapon upgrade. The campaign also loses momentum in the middle, where encounters start feeling like variations of fights you’ve already won. And while I appreciate the new faces, there are moments where I wish the story spent more time on Marcus and Dom. None of these problems ruin the experience, but they keep it from being the all-time classic it occasionally looks ready to become. It’s also one of those games where the developers clearly wanted to expand upon everything that came before but sometimes forgot that bigger doesn’t necessarily mean better. There’s nothing wrong with slowing things down occasionally, especially when the series has been criticized for becoming increasingly bombastic, but there’s a difference between giving the player room to breathe and bringing the momentum to a screeching halt. Thankfully, these moments are relatively minor compared to everything the campaign gets right.
Outside the campaign, competitive multiplayer and the larger-scale Horde Siege mode give Gears something to offer once the credits roll. Siege’s multiple squads and shared objectives are a smart fit for the chaos of E-Day, while the traditional multiplayer still delivers the kind of ridiculous, close-quarters combat that has kept people playing these games for nearly twenty years. Ultimately, Gears of War: E-Day isn’t trying to convince you that cover shooters are the future of gaming. It’s reminding you why they were such a big deal in the first place. The Coalition has delivered a brutal, beautiful, and surprisingly emotional return for a series that badly needed one. It isn’t a complete reinvention, nor does it need to be, because sometimes the smartest thing a developer can do is remember what made something special in the first place. Whatever happens next in the Xbox household, at least Gears is still bringing home good grades.
Score: 9 out of 10
Reviewed on Xbox Series X