Gears of War: E-Day Reviews Roundup: What Critics Are Saying

Gears of War: E-Day lands a week after launch with reviews that read like a coronation. The Coalition’s prequel is set 14 years before the first Gears, on the day the Locust erupted from beneath Sera. It is the highest-rated entry in the series in two decades, and most critics call it one of the best Xbox exclusives in years.

The verdict so far

Gears of War: E-Day holds an 88 Metascore on Xbox Series X from 54 critics. That breaks down to 92% positive, 8% mixed and 0% negative. On PC, the 83 Metascore comes from 43 critics (87% positive, 13% mixed). OpenCritic sits at 87. Players are warmer than most: 1,302 user ratings average 8.6, with 85% positive, 3% mixed and 11% negative.

The campaign is the throughline that lifts everything. It runs 15-18 hours solo across 28 missions, set in the doomed industrial city of Kalona and the Locust tunnels underneath.

IGN’s reviewer called it “one of my favorite games of the year, and dare I say one of the best as well.” Pure Xbox gave it a perfect 100, calling it “a monumental triumph from a developer that irrefutably understands what’s important to fans.” DayOne’s 100 praised “the best the combat has felt in twenty years.” ID’s 95 called it “the most gripping Gears of War game to date.” Gamekult went the other way with a 6/10, putting it up against Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2 and finding it a “sluggish follower, bloated with loot and filler.”

What critics loved

The campaign. Pure Xbox, IGN Spain (100), Generación Xbox (100), and ID (95) all point to the return of Marcus Fenix and Dom Santiago. They also point to how the new squad members (ex-Gear Mags Carter and rookie Lucas Reyes) get enough room to earn their place. IGN’s verdict: “E-Day makes time for your lesser-known squadmates and gets you to care about them.” IGN Italy’s 90 highlights the return of “the exceptionally high standards of the original trilogy.” Gfinity’s 100 calls the campaign “a masterclass prequel that restores complete faith in Xbox’s future.”

The weapons and gear. Every review mentions the Lancer and the Gnasher, but IGN singles out the Breechshot, the Incinerator, the Ripper, and the Torque Bow as the new classics. A new Weapon Mod and Tactical Gear layer lets you tweak both loadout and armor between missions. Screen Rant’s 90 calls it the franchise’s “best place to start for both new and returning players.” Our Gears of War: E-Day beginner’s guide covers the modes and loadout system in more detail.

The new Horde Siege. The PvE mode is the standout of the multiplayer offering. IGN calls it “the star of the show.” Up to three other four-person squads run on the same map. There is class-based progression and a meta layer that lifts it above the series’ old Horde. Versus, including the rotating Warpath mode, is the same brutal Gnasher-driven flow the series has built its name on, with crossplay enabled from day one (here is how crossplay and progression work on Xbox, Xbox on PC, and Steam).

The complaints

Gamekult (6/10) is the loudest outlier. Its review calls E-Day “a franchise on autopilot with little left to say, except to cling to memories of its former glory.” It says watching the series “turn into a sluggish follower” of Space Marine 2 was “heartbreaking.” screenactu’s 88 and Screen Rant’s 90 are more measured but land in the same place: the open and semi-open areas from Gears 5 show up here, sometimes with reused environments and not enough enemy variety.

Radio Times’ 80 and IGN both call out the first act as slow. IGN also flagged the down-but-not-out revive AI as inconsistent on solo play. Squadmates sometimes stand next to the player and do not revive them. The open-world structure isn’t always as freeing as it sometimes feels.

Performance and platforms

Gears of War: E-Day is Xbox Series X|S and PC only (Steam and Xbox on PC), and day one on Xbox Game Pass. The $70 price point has been the focus of last week’s sales coverage. The Coalition also took flak for Xbox Series S optimization. Radio Times found “stuttering” and “enemies vanishing out of existence” on the smaller console in the wide open areas, with no such issues on Series X. IGN recommends the Performance Mode over Quality on Series X to avoid the framerate hitches that show up “even while playing in Performance Mode.”

On PC, the story is similar with a few more caveats. Adrenaline (90) and Multiplayer.it (90) note the mandatory ray tracing demands a high-end rig. Adrenaline’s review specifically calls out “disappearing weapon upgrades and audio glitches” plus “performance inconsistencies.” That gap shows up in the numbers too: the PC Metascore of 83 trails the Series X’s 88 by 5 points, and 13% of PC reviews are mixed vs 8% on console. Crossplay is enabled, but IGN notes there are no private Versus matches at launch, so bring your own squad.

How it stacks up across platforms

Should you play it?

Game Pass subscribers should download it now. The question is just whether to play solo or with two or three friends. Solo players get a 15-18 hour story with the best weapons and set-pieces the series has had in years. But IGN’s revive-AI complaint means four-player online co-op is the better way to play the campaign. Returning Gears fans will find the most to love: the franchise’s signature cover combat, the Lancer-vs-Locust carnage, and a Horde mode that finally feels modern. Multiplayer-first players get Versus and Horde Siege with crossplay, but private matches are missing at launch, so coordinate with friends ahead of time. Newcomers can start here. Our beginner’s guide walks through the modes and the story setup before you boot it up.

If you’re still on a Series S, wait for a patch or play on PC if you have the hardware. The game is optimized for the Series X, and the gap is visible.

Our read: The Coalition didn’t just deliver a Gears game people like, they delivered a Gears game critics haven’t been this unified about since 2006’s Gears of War 1. The 88 Metascore on Series X is the highest the franchise has scored in the Metacritic era, and that’s coming off two consecutive releases (Gears 4 and Gears 5) that landed in the 70s. The 5-point Xbox/PC gap isn’t a fluke either. The PC build’s mandatory ray tracing and Series S stuttering are real, recurring complaints across at least three outlets, and they pull the average down for a game whose campaign and Horde Siege would otherwise have been unanimous. The Game Pass day-one slot matters more than the headline: a $70 single-player campaign that takes 15-18 hours is a much easier call when it’s free for the 30+ million Ultimate subscribers, and the multiplayer has legs to keep that audience around. The launch-week 31,517-player Steam peak, triple the series’ old record, also suggests the audience is there, even with Sunday’s DDoS-driven login and multiplayer disconnects on day five. If you bounced off Gears 5, E-Day is the reset the series has needed for a decade.

Edited by Kerwin Stewart, Editor-in-Chief · How we report