Gears Of War: E-Day is a very pretty game. Too pretty, in fact, not to have a photo mode.
There’s never been one in past Gears games and The Coalition’s latest entry in the sci-fi shooter series hasn’t upended that status quo. Which is a shame, really, because the Xbox exclusive is probably in the running for one of the best-looking games of 2026.
The Gears games of yore were heavily associated with the generally dull mix of grey steels and brown rock that proliferated in the Xbox 360 era. Things leveled up during the Xbox One era with more colorful environments and some stunning skyboxes in Gears 4 and 5.
But Gears Of War: E-Day, the first new entry since the Xbox Series X/S console cycle began, takes all the bells and whistles of Unreal Engine 5 and throws them at a Gears city in its heyday at the outset of the war with the Locust. The result is an urban sandbox full of ornate architectural details and impressive lighting effects that I wish I could take an in-game camera to.
Lest you think it’s all grimdark gothic vibes mixed with post-war industrial abundance, Gears of War: E-Day looks really good out in mother nature as well. A brief segment around the middle of the game has you going through the woods at night and the way the shimmering moonlight bounces off the leaves and tree bark is so good, it made me want to spam the screen capture button on my Xbox controller.
Equally impressive is how good it all still looks on my Series S. While the resolution is lower and I’ve had some real choppy framerate issues at various points in the game, Gears of War: E-Day still looks very nice on my cheap TV running on the $300 box I bought almost six years ago. And like with most games, the screenshots still don’t quite do the real-time experience justice.
A photo mode wouldn’t just give players a bunch of extra settings to fiddle with while snapping pictures, it would also alleviate the need to tinker with the HUD or try to capture images in-between the ambient dialogue captions. Maybe The Coalition will add one at some point down the road, along with a few of the other MIA features. I hope it does.