Gears of War: E-Day was provided by Xbox for review. Thank you!
Back in the day, I loved playing these action-packed single-player shooters. The Call of Duty Modern Warfare and Black Ops campaigns were some of my favorites, but I loved playing Halo and Gears of War. There aren't many games that can still give me the same joy nowadays, as my tastes have expanded to enjoying larger-scale RPGs. However, I do miss those good ol' days, and I am overjoyed that Gears of War: E-Day brought me right back and made me feel that nostalgia once again.
So far, I’ve only had the pleasure of playing through the campaign for E-Day, but it gave me a very good taste of what to expect from the multiplayer as well. And at the end of the day, it not only reminded me of why Gears of War is such an iconic franchise, but also brought me back to some of the feelings I had playing through action-packed single-player shooters I had grown up with.
With Gears of War E-Day, we go all the way back to before the first game took place and experience the moment the war against the Locust began. Marcus Fenix and Dominic Santiago, pairing up with Lucas Reyes and Mags Carter, are sucked into the day when the Locust first tunnel up from underground, marking what would be known as E-Day.
While we know what happens later on, it’s extremely interesting to see how the events unfolded the day the war started. It feels a little crazy to see Marcus and Dom make a return, looking younger, and seeing some of the revelations that would feel commonplace in the other Gears of War games. It was like a mix of nostalgia and surprise seeing how everything began, and that includes other minor events that seemingly ripple through to become staples we expect from the franchise.
However, the game doesn’t bank on that nostalgia. The story itself is great and plays out very well. Nothing felt rushed, and every event that happened felt justified and exciting. The near-constant action mixed extremely well with the third-person shooting to create tense and explosive moments that sometimes left me in awe. The entirety of chapter 1, and the end of chapter 2, were some of the first moments where I needed to take a second and take in everything that was happening around me. It was beautiful chaos, and it reminded me of why I enjoyed so many action shooters growing up.
There are also a good chunk of heartstrings pulled throughout the campaign. There’s a good chunk of emotional moments that hit hard. Whether it was the weight of Mags’ past or Marcus’ guilt from The Pendulum Wars, it was played off extremely well with fantastic voice, acting, and direction that started to hit me hard in those moments. I felt the pain as the characters felt it, and it was beautiful.
The gameplay takes the same cinematic-esque tone that it did before, and it keeps the action exciting from beginning to end. If you’ve played any of the Gears of War games, the gameplay will feel almost identical. It’s still in third-person, with an emphasis on taking cover and shooting, and the perfect reload mechanic is still alive and well. Managing all of that, along with our loadout of 3 weapons, a grenade, and a tactical gadget, makes each combat situation exhilarating. The gameplay feels just as good as ever, and I adore it.
The visceral feel of each encounter is highlighted by the solid soundtrack and incredible sound effects. There’s something so satisfying about the loud pop of the Locust’s heads, exploding from a well-placed sniper shot, or the sound of the chainsaw ripping through their bodies. It helps the cinematic executions return, and it completes the package of the gruesome combat that I was hoping to see.
As much as I did enjoy each encounter in E-Day, it wasn’t all perfect. I was never a huge fan of enemies that were bullet sponges, but combining that with the wavering movement when getting shot at sometimes made it feel impossible to shoot the enemies enough to kill them. This made going after the larger monsters much more difficult. It also made it very annoying to deal with snipers, and it became much more difficult to line up my shot, but it only took two or three shots from the sniper to bring me down. I need to be revived more times than I would like to admit, purely because I would try to line things up when I was getting shot at.
But not all is the same; there are two big changes that influence the entirety of the campaign experience. The first is progression. While we don’t have a leveling system, we will be able to find weapon mods throughout the game. As we keep finding more, we will unlock more slots to put more mods on the multitude of guns we find. These can help emphasize our playstyle, from chainsaw executions giving perfect reloads, to adding scopes and increasing critical damage and accuracy, to adding laser sights when aiming down. There are a good chunk of mods for each gun that open up lots of options to define the way we want to use them.
To get more of these mods, we will find them in Hard Cases around the levels or by completing side objectives; we can find them in the open-area levels. There are a few of these in the campaign, and we can run through the levels however we want. Throughout, we will find side objectives, random skirmishes, collectibles, and those Hard Cases that can give us more weapon mods. I actually didn’t mind the open areas as much as I thought I would. I was expecting a more linear experience in the campaign, which is primarily how the story is told, but I liked the change of pace, being able to walk around freely and tackle side objectives. I was more than happy to take any reason to keep on fighting the Locust grunts.
If the multiplayer Horde Siege mode is anything like this, I can see it being extremely fun.
Some of the open area segments did feel like they lasted a little too long; they were more main objectives than I thought, to get back to the linear story segments, and some of that felt like intentional padding to make the story last longer. It was still interesting, and none of it felt like it didn’t belong at all, but I could see some of the events being cut to streamline the story and get to the more exciting beats quicker.
And I have to admit, there are a lot more collectibles than I expected. It’s a nice reason to go back and explore the open segments, which I did find myself tempted to do multiple times. Part of this was defined by the rest of the weapon mods, but I did enjoy going out and finding the collectibles myself.
It also becomes quite easy to find all of these. If we come close, we will get a signal that a collectible, Hard Case, or Supply Cache is nearby. It will automatically appear on the map, where we can ping it to find the spot immediately. It’s less about searching every nook and cranny and more about walking through the general areas of each map. On one hand, I do enjoy looking through, but on the other, it’s nice to just have everything streamlined and easy for me to find.
Although I wasn't able to play around with the multiplayer modes in E-Day, I do feel confident reviewing and rating the game based on the campaign and gameplay elements. I will add in my thoughts on the multiplayer content once the game is out, but it won't reflect my overall review score.
Sadly, for those who want to play this on the Steam Deck, it’s just not viable. It does completely boot up, and we can play the game, but even on the lowest possible settings, it will regularly dip below 30 FPS. As of right now, I don't recommend playing Gears of War: E-Day on the Deck at all.
Gears of War: E-Day brings us back to the classic Gears gameplay with a fantastic new story and some interesting ideas. The story is filled with action and emotion, with great pacing to hit it home. Coupled with the iconic gameplay and some new mechanics, it was a joy to experience all the way through. There are still some nuisances with how obnoxious enemies can be, and some of the open-area segments stick around a little longer than I would have liked, but I still had a blast experiencing E-Day.
Unfortunately, this won't be an experience we can enjoy on the Steam Deck, as it drops below 30 FPS consistently on the lowest possible settings.
Our review is based on the PC version of this game.
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Gears of War: E-Day brings us back to the iconic franchise with a exhilarating look at how it all began, though it won't be one we can enjoy on the Steam Deck.
