I’ve been a huge Gears of War fan for a very long time. I dressed up accordingly for the Gears of War 3 midnight release (I worked at GameStop), and promptly spent $800 on everything Gears I could get my hands on. You could argue Gears of War is the reason I’m covering games in the industry today, as a video contest that won me a trip to E3 2017 via Xbox had a lot of Gears in the background of said video. As such, I stood up and clapped when E-Day was revealed at the Xbox Games Showcase in 2024. Now that I’ve actually played the new multiplayer and Horde Siege mode, I’m all in on Gears of War: E-Day. E-Day has gone from a campaign romp to a game that could command a lot of my time.
Let’s start with Horde Siege mode. This isn’t your dad’s Horde mode, and while different isn’t always better, this mode is mind-blowingly good. I expected something bigger with the addition of three squads of four to the map, but the way The Coalition has implemented Horde Siege is astounding.
Loading in, you’ll pick a class and set your loadout. You’ll have access to four unique soldier types – Assault, Breacher, Marksman, and Medic. It’s pretty easy to identify who does what given the titles, but at any rate, each one has a special piece of tactical gear that works like an ultimate ability, along with a different progression track for earning new weapons and equipment to mix things up. There are also mods you can use to improve your tactical gear and your armor, which will improve your survivability.
Everything I played takes place in the ruined cityscape of Kalona (there will be three maps at launch). It’s not a small area – this reminds me somewhat of the evolution of Call of Duty Zombies to a degree. What might be more surprising is that this is essentially a full-fledged dead city with objectives to search out and complete. Think of a Battlefield-sized map, but without the PvP. It’s huge, and although there’s not a ton of color, it makes up for it in post-apocalyptic ambience.
Once you get your bearings, exploring what remains amongst the rubble is treacherous, but a whole lot of fun. Horde Siege is most impressive in the atmosphere it creates: it feels alive and reminds me in the best ways of how Helldivers 2 approached their core design. You’ll spawn in a random location and trek towards your main objective. To get the best results, you’ll earn points for completing tasks, which can then be spent later on down the line (and we’ll get into that with Supply Caches later in this preview).
Along the way, the map is littered with side missions you can hit, with things like High Value Targets or Weapons Parts Stockpiles. Each of these offers different tasks to finish and rewards, but usually I walked away with Weapons Parts: a resource for upgrading your loadout. Once you’ve made a few runs, you’ll have the parts to spend to put a better scope on your Longshot, or a new stock to help with recoil on your Lancer. These are just a few examples of the upgrades, but it’s definitely worth going off the beaten path to enhance your Gear.
Each match of Horde Siege revolves around generators (R.I.G.s) out in the wild of Kalona. You’ll be protecting said R.I.G.s, reactivating them and Supply Caches, and more. This is where it feels most like regular Horde mode, as you’ll defend areas versus incoming waves of enemies. The Locust horde is as ferocious as ever, sprinting you down and trying to eliminate you by whatever means they have available. There’s a lot of variation in the enemy types as well, although the heavy enemies tend to be a bit one note. Between Boomers, Reavers, Wretches, Seeders, and more, I was satiated with the range. Compared to certain other variants of Horde out in modern gaming, it’s a veritable smorgasbord of a rogues gallery – assuming the rogues were daft in the head.
Where Horde Siege gets more intricate is in how you prep for the approaching storm of Locust. E-Day doesn’t have a ton of options necessarily, but given we’re only in the first demo, there could be much more to unlock down the line. Depending on the class you choose, you have different access to specific equipment from any nearby Supply Cache. These are buy stations where you’ll expend your hard-fought points for ammo, gear, and additional mods to boost things like damage percentage for your team. For instance, my Berserker class could use spike traps and explosive decoys while my Medic teammate was dropping mortar turrets. The sites themselves don’t have a lot of ways to hold off the horde; we came across a couple of turret mounts for different kinds of heavy weapons, but that was largely it. Hopefully the fortification mechanic will be upgraded as the mode continues to evolve.
Something very different from previous Horde modes is the ability to extract from the map. Horde Siege makes me think of a mini-extraction shooter. Sure, it’s not nearly as tough and you aren’t trying to get out with specific items (although the weapons parts do come with you), but the metamorphosis of the mode is staggering to see. I’d go as far as calling this a perfect choice for the design of Horde mode – this just fits.
The amount of time you spend in each run is completely up to you, and you can make it more difficult. One way is through a simple difficulty slider; while we stayed on Rookie for the most part, I’m sure the rewards will be greater the tougher you make Horde Siege. The second way is changing the type of run: Blitz, Siege, and Horde headline the runs you can make. Simply put, these three runs don’t necessarily differ much in what you do, but offer more lengthy engagements in the mode. Playing Horde was where we felt the most impact – we had to defend a generator for ten waves, and the battles were arduous.
PvP multiplayer might not be as acclaimed as its Horde counterpart, but Gears of War’s multiplayer has always had a distinct feel to it compared to others in the space. My team got ran in the first match playing, but as we started to understand the systems in play behind the mode, we began to own each map.
While Horde Siege has you picking a bunch of different guns and upgrading them, multiplayer functions as an arena shooter. You get a Lancer, Gnasher, Snub pistol, and smoke grenade to open your match. Each map has additional weapons to pick up as you go. Some, like the Gut-Puncher grenade launcher, can be “win conditions” as they are instant kills. Learning where stuff spawns, just like Halo, is something you should get to know.
Speaking of knowing where stuff is, the two maps I played are very different venues, but really work incredibly well for what E-Day’s multiplayer suite does. There are open lanes, but with plenty of cover to allow you to make your way forward towards your enemy. Verticality is offered as well, but never came off as a high ground situation where you could rule a map from said position – you can be easily avoided for the most part. The choke points on the map are where you’ll have to be careful; the Gnasher is still a powerful shotgun that can control the flow of combat.
Gunplay is very good, with each weapon having a recoil pattern you’ll have to learn to fight against. For every bullet that the Lancer MK1 fires, the kick negates the amount of damage it provides. I largely saw the usual variety of Gears of War's armory in this beta, and that's okay. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. The Longshot is still devastating when you hit that headshot, and an execution with the chainsaw on the Prototype Lancer is as gruesome as ever.
As mentioned above, the Gnasher is still a phenomenal weapon, but you can shut it down by simply knowing the map and who you’re playing against. Instead of rushing players who tried to abuse choke points, wall-bouncing, and Gnashers, we found our spot in a more open lane and set up crossfires with Lancers. They could still use cover and push us, but at that point we could pull out our Gnashers for the counter. It’ll be fascinating to see how the meta changes over time as new weapons and maps are introduced, but I doubt “Old Reliable” in the Gnasher will ever fully get nerfed into the ground.
I have to give a ton of credit to The Coalition for the makeover the movement mechanics have received (which also extend to Horde Siege). Sure, I haven’t spent a lot of time in Gears multiplayer, but I know how clunky movement has felt just from the campaigns. E-Day feels night and day different, with a smoothness I don’t think the series has ever seen. Sprinting no longer has your screen shaking like a violent earthquake, dodge-rolling is more deliberate, and the new slide is outstanding. Being able to feel in control as I maneuvered through cover is a tremendous step forward for E-Day, and could be key in inflating the player counts.
That said, wall-bouncing is still something that will be abused in E-Day. I don’t think it’s too cheesy, but at the same time, I wouldn’t be surprised to see sweaty Gears up their game and discover the best ways to exploit this long-running mechanic. I’m curious how the team will look to approach it, especially as someone who watched an unintended mechanic in slide-cancelling from Call of Duty become a point of interest. Could wall-bouncing change? I don’t think so, but the conversations around it during the beta are going to be intriguing.
One of my few disappointments in this preview was the lack of new modes to try in multiplayer. Where Horde Siege was refreshing, the PvP was quite limited here. The only modes available to play were Team Deathmatch and Conquest. Although the Gears take on TDM is different – fifteen lives in the bank with a first to two rounds eliminating the other team winning – Conquest is simply King of the Hill (or Strongholds for Halo players). I’m sure they’ll introduce something new eventually, and even at launch, but it’d have been nice to see whatever that is showcased in this demo.
Outside of a few nitpicks, I left my time with the Gears of War: E-Day beta absolutely floored by how great it’s shaping up to be. This isn’t just a new coat of paint – E-Day represents a new era for the series in multiplayer and Horde Siege. There are adjustments and additions still to come as well, so this taste of what the team has to offer is only the beginning. The foundation is there for The Coalition to knock PvE and PvP out of the park, and after my sessions, I’d argue they already have. It’s not outlandish to think E-Day will be around come awards season.
Gears of War: E-Day launches on October 6th, with early access via the Premium and Collector’s Editions of the game starting on October 1st (which just so happens to be my 10th wedding anniversary if you want to get me anything, XBOX). If you pre-order now or have XBOX Game Pass Ultimate, you’ll be able to play the Gears of War: E-Day beta, which begins on August 6th. Stay tuned to GamingTrend for more on Gears of War: E-Day!
