Gears of War: E-Day rolls out worldwide starting October 6, and thanks to early access players, The Coalition has identified several issues that it’s fixing with the game’s first patch. Focused mostly on overall stability and performance across the game’s campaign, multiplayer, and Horde Siege modes, the Gears of War: E-Day update is out now.
One of the biggest fixes is the “Bilefrog-Kalona” error, an issue named after the gigantic subterranean Locust frogs encountered throughout the game, which regularly try to kill you by vomiting stomach acid at your position. Nasty stuff. The Coalition assigned several Gears-themed names to its network errors, and in this case, getting vomit-frogged is a specific split-screen multiplayer issue. This triggers when a split-screen player is automatically signed out of online services after the console or PC is suspended, then tries to use Quick Resume to hop back in.
The Coalition says it has also addressed an issue in Versus Social matches that results in players entering a waiting-lobby limbo, and fixed an issue that could prevent certain Siege Blitz Secure objectives from being completed. For the campaign, several pesky problems across Act 2 are being patched, while other game-wide instances of sticky turrets and unearned War Journal progress have been resolved.
These fixes come on the eve of the game’s worldwide rollout on PC and Xbox Series X|S, and an influx of Game Pass subscribers are expected to enter Kalona starting tomorrow. While the overall story isn’t the best Gears of War narrative, the game is still recommended for anyone who wants a big, dumb, and loud cover-based shooter that looks gorgeous on PC and Xbox Series X|S.
“For better or worse, E-Day is distinctly Gears, and I had a good time with it, even if the story is disappointing and the open areas are fairly dull,” Richard Wakeling wrote in GameSpot’s Gears of War: E-Day campaign review. “But that’s all it is: a good game, propped up by combat that hasn’t changed all that much over the past 20 years. That’s enough to skate by, but I wish Gears of War would dig deeper.”
Gears of War: E-Day October 5 Patch Notes
Stability and Performance
- Made various stability, performance, hardware compatibility, and reporting improvements across the game
Online and multiplayer services
- Addressed an issue causing some Versus Social matches to remain on the “Waiting for players” screen
- Improved Xbox authentication handling when the system clock differs significantly from the correct time
- Addressed “Bilefrog-Kalona” error, where a split-screen player could be signed out after suspending and resuming the game
- Improved online-session stability when accessing session information
Campaign
- Addressed an issue where players joining an existing Campaign could receive War Journal progress and Forge rewards earned before they joined
- Addressed an issue where players could remain attached to turrets when a cinematic or gameplay moment began
- Addressed an issue where some join-in-progress players might not receive the expected Forge Discovery War Journal progress
- Act 2 Chapter 2: Addressed an issue where the objective could fail to update when entering Allfather’s Plaza after completing activities elsewhere in the mission
- Act 2 Chapter 2: Addressed an issue where the Heavy Gear in the Black Raven Down side objective could appear without a Vulcan
- Act 4 Chapter 1: Addressed an issue where certain side objectives could fail to start if players entered the objective area while introductory dialogue was playing
- Act 4 Chapter 2: Addressed one cause of the Power Station defense objective failing to complete after all visible enemies were defeated
Horde Siege
- Addressed an issue that could prevent certain Siege Blitz Secure objectives from being completed
- Addressed an issue where the extraction helicopter could fail to appear during a Downtown West Blitz mission
Versus
- Addressed an issue in Demolition where a bomb could become stuck in a defusing state if a player was eliminated while beginning the defuse interaction
UI
- Adjusted the size and appearance of Online Diagnostic text
- Addressed one possible cause of the UI repeatedly attempting to claim the same Challenge Mail reward
