Gears of War: E-Day is the next mainline entry in the popular Xbox franchise. But this isn’t a sequel to Gears 5. Instead, this upcoming installment takes the series back in time and shows players the beginning of the conflict with the Locust on Emergence Day and all the chaos that followed.
During today’s big Xbox Showcase, developer The Coalition shared more about the game and what to expect. And then, even more details were shared in a lengthy Xbox Wire post. Here are eight key takeaways that you should know about.
See how Emergence Day destroyed one city, Kalona
Gears of War: E-Day is primarily set in one city, Kalona, depicting how it falls apart over three days as the Locust burst through the ground and wreak havoc on the planet of Sera. And we’ll get to see how Marcus and others deal with this new threat, one they’ve never seen before at this point in the timeline.
“At the beginning, people don’t know what the hell is going on,” art director Aryan Hanbeck says. “Then they’re being slaughtered by monsters. Later, you might encounter groups that are trying to fight back. The evolution of how our civilians act, and how we act towards them, has been one of the most interesting things to explore.”
This is a completely new game
According to The Coalition, this is the first Gears of War game the team has built that doesn’t port forward any old assets or pieces of old games. The leap to Unreal 5 has opened up the team to add not only tons of new, advanced graphical elements but also to recreate all the old pieces of Gears, including character models, weapons, and more.
Even the iconic “Bwwamm” noise that plays after killing the last enemy during a fight is brand new.
“We literally rebuilt everything from scratch,” studio technical director Kate Rayner says. “Characters, enemies, weapons, animation, sound, the world itself.” Nicole Fawcette, brand director, added: “Literally everything you see in E-Day did not exist before we made it for this game.”
Marcus can slide now, and more
The Coalition’s goal with Gears of War: E-Day was to make a cover shooter that felt like the old games, but offered more options and features. For example, Marcus and other characters can now slide from a sprint, which is useful for getting into cover or sliding through an opening.
Gears of War: E-Day also supports different types of cover, including environmental elements that are lower than those used for cover in past games, forcing Marcus to go nearly prone. And for the first time in the series, players can now jump, which the studio says adds more verticality to levels and lets you explore the rooftops of Kalona.
Gears of War: E-Day is adding new guns
Despite being a prequel set before the events of the first game, E-Day will include new weapons. One is a handheld grenade launcher that looks fun. Personally, I’m more excited about the new Locust-created shotgun that fires acid-like Emulsion onto enemies and melts.
How will they explain where these guns went? I’m assuming some crates got misplaced in shipping or fell down a hole.
This is not an open-world game
While the city in Gears of War: E-Day is massive and highly detailed, the studio made it clear that this isn’t an open-world game.
“We’re not an open-world game, but this technology has allowed us to build an entire city that feels alive,” creative director Matt Searcy told Xbox Wire. “In previous games, you see linear levels that are often disconnected — you load from one to another, they have different vistas, and don’t feel super cohesive. When we look at Kalona in the [UE5] editor, we can literally lift up the camera and look at this entire, integrated city.
The game fills in the ‘negative space’ of Marcus and Dom’s early days
Despite Marcus and Dom being the emotional core of the franchise, we actually don’t know much about their early days and how they became everyone’s favorite bros. This, according to the devs, ended up being a big advantage for the team, with Fawcette calling this period of time in the franchise “negative space” that can be filled with whatever they wanted without breaking canon.
“Fans just know that Marcus and Dom are these best friends that fought in the Locust War,” said Fawcette. “But did you know that Dom had a full-on family? He had two kids. He had a brother who died before the war. That was Marcus’s friend. There were tensions.”
The team has also brought in Karen Traviss, who wrote some of the Gears books that contained the few scant details fans have about their earlier days, to help with developing E-Day‘s story.
We’ll see the origin of the chainsaw Lancer
This is not only a game about the origin of the broship between Marcus and Dom.
We’ll also get to see how the iconic chainsaw Lancer rifle was created. In Gears lore, the famous weapon wasn’t used during the Pendulum Wars that preceded the events of E-Day. Instead, it was created with the help of Marcus Fenix during the early days of the Locust invasion. We’ll get to see how that happened and get our hands on the early prototype.
Interestingly, at one point during the Gears Direct, the team explained that they found the original model of chainsaw used to create the audio recordings for Gears 1‘s Lancer and brought it back to re-record it in higher fidelity.
Horde Siege is a new 12-player PvE multiplayer mode
Gears of War: E-Day will include a new 12-player PvE multiplayer horde mode, the biggest mode ever to appear in the franchise.
Horde Siege is a new 12-player PvE mode in which three squads defend Kalona across larger city maps. It’s a reimagining of the classic Horde mode first seen in Gears 2. But don’t worry, fans of sweaty PvP combat, the classic 4v4 versus modes are coming back, too. And players will be able to get their hands on the game ahead of its October launch via an open beta in August.
Gears of War: E-Day is coming to Xbox and PC (and not PS5) on October 6. Pre-ordering gets players early access to the open beta.
