Carter posted a picture of a gigantic sound stage with several monitors where actors would don mocap suits before they acted out scenes for the in-game cinematics, and provided some context with the caption: “First shoot #Diablo5”.

Blizzard has been well-regarded for the cinematic cutscenes of its games as far back as 1998 with the release of the original StarCraft. Since then, the company has continued to build on this reputation with games like Warcraft 3: Reign of Chaos and The Frozen Throne, World of Warcraft, all three StarCraft 2 titles, and Overwatch. The last one is especially noteworthy since the company has used cinematic cutscenes to tell much of the PvP shooter’s story.

Diablo has been no exception to this, with Diablo 2 and its Lord of Destruction expansion seeing quite a bit of praise for the moody cutscenes that told the action RPG’s story. Both Diablo 3 and Diablo 4 would also feature phenomenal cutscenes, with the latter getting a lavish reveal through a cinematic cutscene giving us our first proper look at antagonist Lilith.

The story of Diablo 5 is going to be an ambitious one, with Blizzard noting that three narratives will be presented to the player as they make their way through the action RPG. One story will provide the background information on how the world fell under Diablo’s power. The second will tell the story of the player’s own actions that will decide the fate of Sanctuary, while the third will focus on the world’s future.

Executive producer Mark Zitterman said last month that the company is hoping to make Diablo 5’s campaign the “best campaign ever.” He spoke about how this serves as “a pillar of how we think about the game” and how it serves as “an example of us taking what was great in Diablo 4 and taking it further.”

As for why Blizzard announced Diablo 5 so early, president Johanna Faries said that the company wanted to “convey confidence in some of our biggest bets coming forward.” She went on to say that the studio is “going to ship, ship big, and ship on time”.

Diablo 5 was unveiled alongside a pair of other new projects – a shooter set in the sci-fi setting of StarCraft slated for launch in 2030, and a reimagining of the original 2004 version of World of Warcraft, dubbed World of Warcraft Forever. The latter is slated to go live on November 4th and will be available as part of a regular World of Warcraft subscription. A $30 version is also available for pre-order, which provides access to a brand-new playable race – the Skyborne.

In the meantime, take a look at why Blizzard has decided to once more focus on the Lord of Terror with Diablo 5.

Among the franchises mentioned in the survey are DOOM, The Elder Scrolls, Minecraft, Diablo, and Fallout. It even includes third-party games like Physint, which is being developed by Kojima Productions. Conspicuous by its absence is the Call of Duty series. However, exclusivity for the franchise is likely off the table considering all the regulatory hoops Microsoft had to jump through during its acquisition process for Activision Blizzard. The survey even poses the question of whether fans would be more interested in Xbox if every franchise except for Call of Duty became exclusive.

“Imagine it was announced that all future title releases from every Xbox-developed gaming franchise except Call of Duty will be console-exclusive to Xbox. For Minecraft only, existing titles would no longer be available for purchase on PlayStation or Nintendo consoles, and would not receive any new content updates. However, there is no impact to any of the existing titles or content you already own. Nothing changes on PC in this announcement.”

Gears of War: E-Day was confirmed to be Xbox-exclusive alongside InXile Entertainment’s RPG Clockwork Revolution. The company has even gone as far as to note that the two titles aren’t simply going to be timed exclusives. However, Xbox has also said that games already announced for a multiplatform release will not see any change in plans.

“As part of our focus on the return of Xbox, we also announced that Gears of War: E-Day and Clockwork Revolution will be Xbox console exclusives. These are not timed exclusives. Games already announced for multiplatform releases will stick to that plan – we’re committed to investing in and growing Xbox both on console and beyond.”

Xbox CEO Asha Sharma has previously spoken about the possibility of the company going back to exclusive game releases. Back in June, she had also discussed how the company had to “reevaluate” its stance on Xbox exclusives so that it could walk the fine line between being “a great publisher” and working with third-party developers.

“It’s a tough topic. Look, we’re the number two publisher in the world, and in order to be a great publisher, you must have your games reach large audiences to play. At the same time, we’re increasingly becoming a platform, and in order to become a platform, you must have exclusive content and services. And so, we’re looking at that very closely.”

As for how this will play out in the long term, Sharma noted that the company plans to make these decisions on a case-by-case basis. The survey might indicate a bigger push towards exclusivity depending on fan sentiment. However, it is worth noting that the company likely has to carefully evaluate whether franchises like Fallout and Diablo are big enough to convince gamers to buy a new Xbox, leaving behind libraries they have built on PlayStation in the process.

Sharma cites the recent advances that the gaming industry has seen in efforts to decompile and recompile older titles, allowing hobbyist developers to create PC ports for games that were previously console-exclusive.

“In recent weeks, we’ve seen games rapidly decompiled and rebuilt to run on hardware they were never originally designed to support. Windows PC builds have been translated to run on Apple Silicon or ported to run inside a browser through WebAssembly and WebGPU, the latter now approaching 90% global browser support. Perhaps more surprisingly, we’ve seen many of the biggest games in the world have been remixed into the source code of another.”

Noting that these efforts have raised questions about the relationship between software and hardware, Sharma has said that the company wants to further invest in these efforts with its own engineers, while also maintaining a level of transparency with the community at large. She also believes that Xbox can play a major role in this department owing to the company’s history of developing games and creating development pipelines that have also integrated modern tech like AI agents.

“To explore these possibilities, I’ve asked Scott to stand up Xbox Labs, a small group of game makers, engineers, and scientists whose job is to turn emerging ideas into things our players and developers can experience. We’ll build in the open, learn from what people do, and measure success by whether more people are playing and creating.

“I think Xbox has an important role to play here. Coding became the first major workload for agents because they can write, run, and test software. Games share many of those same properties, and people spend more than 72 billion hours a year playing Xbox games, roughly five times the estimated time spent writing code worldwide. We’ve spent 25 years learning how to make great games, and I want our game makers to help shape what these new technologies make possible. As we learn, we’ll share the tools we build with developers across the industry, just as we always have.”

Sharma capped off the announcement by noting that the company’s “priorities aren’t changing.” Rather, through Labs, Xbox will be able to further explore new technology in parallel with other development efforts that are continuing throughout the company.

It will likely be quite a bit of time before we see Xbox Labs’ efforts start paying off, however. Xbox has most probably only recently begun staffing up the Labs team, and its choice of first project will also likely take some time to finalize. It is worth noting that Xbox Labs is expected to start working on its own older projects rather than those developed by third-party studios, owing to the easier access to source code.

“On content, I think this is probably the thing that you are all seeing the most about as we’re making a lot of changes.”

She went on to speak about how the bigger franchises will still serve as anchors for Xbox as a whole, and how the company wants to turn them into “great global billion-dollar franchises”. At the same time, Xbox also wants studios to work on new IP that can be further built out over the course of time.

“We’re backing our strongest franchises. I want our great games to become great global billion-dollar franchises. I would also like to see us continue to create enduring new IP. We will not survive if we only revive on the past. We have to find new ways, and courage, to have invention on new IP that reaches new sets of audiences.”

During another recent town hall meeting, Sharma spoke about how the company has started to slowly recover from what she referred to as a “freefall”. She noted that “we’ve started to return to growth, more than 2 to 3 times what we were, and we expect to continue.

She also spoke about the future of hardware at Xbox, referring to Project Helix as “Gen-10” and referring to the line-up as a “family of devices”. While she didn’t seem to have offered more details, she did hint at the idea that Microsoft might potentially go for multiple Xbox SKUs again. However, whether this will end up being a repeat of the current generation’s Series X and S divide, or if it will lead to a further expansion of the company’s efforts in the handheld market remains to be seen.

“We are moving to a family of devices for Gen-10. There is not one device that fits all. We will certainly have a great console first, but we also know that many players will be on the go. There are some things that we are the best in the world to manufacture, and there are other things that we will partner on. So, we will be sharing more about that as our plans develop. The operating system is starting to look really good. We’re very excited about this.”

The line about Project Helix being a “family of devices” was also discussed by Sharma during another interview, where she stressed the company’s need to “innovate on affordability” in light of recent hardware shortages leading to massive price hikes across the board. What kinds of innovations she is talking about will likely be revealed as we get closer to Microsoft officially unveiling Project Helix along with its plans for how to price the console.

The new interface is slated to be designed around being usable with multiple control schemes, be it mouse and keyboard or controllers. Interestingly, pushing further into Microsoft’s larger ambitions for PC gaming, this new version of the Xbox app also seems to include an option for users to make it their default home screen when the PC loads into Windows 11, starting the operating system’s new “Game Mode” in the process.

According to Windows Central’s Jez Corden, the performance improvements in the new Xbox app are going to be quite major, with the report noting that it was able to load a large game library with over 1,400 titles at a much quicker pace than the older version of the app. The new version also offers better indicators for which games can be installed to the system, and which are only available through Xbox Cloud Gaming.

While the app might offer improved UI and better performance, Corden also notes that there doesn’t seem to be any indication of new features, at least for now. The report also brings up the fact that the new Xbox app doesn’t really bring in any improvements to the social ecosystem built around Xbox accounts. This contrasts with Valve’s Steam, which has many features built entirely around communities.

As for when users can expect to get their hands on the app, Corden has indicated that its binaries have already been bundled with newer Windows 11 builds, which indicates that the Insider testing period is coming soon, and a full launch will arrive shortly afterwards.

Cloud streaming capabilities were added to the Xbox app for Windows back in July 2025. At the time, it looked to be part of the company’s Xbox Play Anywhere initiative, which gives users the ability to own Xbox and PC versions of a game if it is bought through Microsoft’s storefront. The ability to directly play purchased games through streaming without having to go through the entire process of downloading a potentially massive title was seen as a positive. At the time, there were also no constraints when it came to cloud gaming time.

More recently, however, Xbox has started tests for an ad-supported tier for cloud streaming, with players being limited to how long they can play before being served with advertisements. The testing began in July 2026, and not all games have been made available through it. However, major releases of the year, like Forza Horizon 6 and 007 First Light, have been made playable through the service.

In the meantime, rumors have also indicated that Game Pass might go through another shift. However, Xbox itself has said that it doesn’t have any changes to announce, at least for now.

The once-proud city is certainly up to the task, and there are several reasons why we think it’s the best staging ground for a story and formula centered on urban warfare. From the events that unfold on its streets to the way The Coalition presents the scale and cost of the conflict with the Locust, there’s a blend of storytelling and gameplay that makes the city a haunting site of the franchise’s origin story and a vital part of E-Day’s value.

Here’s why we think that’s the case.

The Beginning Of A New Journey

You might think that E-Day isn’t going to bring new things to the table since it’s a prequel, and saving all those new offerings could be a great way for Gears 6 to carry the franchise and its present-day story forward after that cliffhanger that continues to bother us and will do so until it’s finally resolved.

But The Coalition hasn’t let a trip to the past prevent it from giving E-Day a level of technical competence that we found excellent, while allowing Kalona to become a world that we can’t wait to see the franchise build on in future titles. To that end, Emergence Day itself is probably the best starting point to see how it weaves itself into the game’s overall presentation.

The story of humanity and the COG’s first encounter with the Locust was always going to end badly for the former, and probably quite badly for Marcus Fenix. Well, we’re not spoiling anything for you, but that sense of loss that’s gradual rather than sudden underscores every scene, humanity’s desperation and desolation showcased on Kalona’s streets.

It’s evident from the game’s very opening, with the population running scared in the wake of the Locust’s invasion, streets and buildings being torn apart from below as they emerge, while abandoned vehicles now serve the grim purpose of blocking a few bullets as you attempt to take control of rapidly unfolding situations.

You see evidence of Emergence Day all around you, grounding you in the fact that you’re fighting a losing battle, and giving it your all anyway. Marcus Fenix is the type of man who’s most dangerous when he’s backed into a corner, and there’s a real sense of that when you’re on the move in Kalona.

The Price Of Conflicts

Of course, when it comes to people in need, Marcus is big of a softie as the rest of us, and you get to assist stranded civilians, each of whom adds a bit of flavor to the underlying examinations of futile conflicts. It’s important to remember that humanity itself had only begun to reconcile with an era of peace after its own internal conflicts, and that the COG was a big part of that.

When you examine all of what’s happening through that lens, the Locusts aren’t just destroying a city, but a bastion of humanity’s resolve to build a better tomorrow. It lends context to how hard Marcus and his team fight to defend its streets and structures while sparing no effort to save as many of its people as they can, despite facing an enemy that presents an increasingly dangerous threat.

It’s also great that choosing to help whenever you can takes you down detours you might not otherwise engage with if you’re trying to blaze a path through the story. Each encounter with Kalona’s citizens is worth engaging with and helps cement it as a world that’s perfect for the kind of experience E-Day attempts to be. It also helps present an altruistic side to Marcus and the rest of the squad, showcasing their commitment to saving lives even as the risks of an unknown threat weigh heavily on their shoulders.

It’s great that many of those detours are often placed between mission objectives that make you feel the weight of choosing to stop and help, and that lends a bit of nuance to the game’s side content often enough for it to be a nice touch. Of course, the city and its defences are meant to fail, and that’s another facet that’s so subtly baked into the very fabric of Kalona’s many environments that it becomes a grim reminder of the losing stakes, and the outstanding resolve that Fenix and his crew demonstrate in the face of such odds.

Indeed, every location is an opportunity for both sides of the conflict to aim for some heavy casualties with intelligently placed bullets, while the new cover system is served very well by environmental destruction that sees bullets chip away at the available cover area you’ve got, forcing you to stay on the move and return fire as strategically as you can.

The city itself is a crumbling shield, one that you’re encouraged to use even though it means you’re a part of its destruction. That the Locust force you into such circumstances time and time again, making you use the very infrastructure you’re trying to preserve as much as you can against them, is part of what makes them a formidable and diabolical foe to face on the battlefield.

That the price of succeeding in an effort to repel them is Kalona itself presents a commentary on the futility of its defence to us players who already know that this is a losing battle, and must watch the tragedy gradually dawn on characters we’ve known for a while, and new faces we’ve come to like very much.

And then there are other familiar faces we may not like, but must grudgingly respect for being worthy opponents to struggle against for Kalona’s sake.

A City Being Put To Sleep

The Locust have always been a thorn in the COG’s side, but The Coalition has done very well to make them a threat that our heroes are not yet well-equipped enough to handle. That doesn’t mean the new gunplay and supporting systems don’t let you feel powerful; far from it. Marcus moves and fights with a sort of fluidity that he didn’t have before, while the new cover system means you get to stay moving and applying pressure on your foes almost constantly.

It’s to the Locust’s credit, then, that nothing is enough to reliably withstand their assault. You cannot fall into a comfortable strategy, as they bring every ounce of vicious aggression to the field, their origins and intentions being an unknown mystery that makes them seem like even more of a threat.

It helps that the narrative framing and the way scenes are presented to you consistently remind you that this is a version of Marcus who’s encountering the Locust for the first time. That immediately makes Kalona a place that’s sure to become significant to him as the story progresses in future titles, and we’re not writing off the possibility that its ruins might yet hold some secrets for the next generation of COG operatives to find.

But the way in which its proud architecture and bright buildings gradually fall to the incessant assaults of the Locust’s hordes lends a melancholy to the story that no amount of exposition-filled cutscenes could have managed. As a world that presents a crucial part of the story that it’s bringing to life, Kalona is a great presence in E-Day.

As one that simultaneously lets its makers use that narrative value to present gameplay changes that are great to engage with while setting a new benchmark in a long-standing franchise, it becomes an outstanding addition to a crowded genre that shows it rivals how things are done.

An Unwilling Host To Chaos

Kalona might not be a place where the Locust will ever belong, but as a city that’s gradually falling under their control, it’s one that allows Gears of War: E-Day to present a story and gameplay loop that rely on the threads it provides to hold them together, binding them into an experience whose intensity is evident in its story and gameplay.

E-Day is a prequel that benefits from confining the action to Kalona, showing us a chapter of Sera’s past that might have us backing further trips backward once we see more of where things are progressing in the present day. It’s where E-Day displays its finest work, and it’s also where our minds are going to automatically go when one talks about the beginning of the franchise’s almost perpetual conflict with the COG’s mortal enemies.

In a narrative that has spanned so many years, that’s an achievement in itself, and we think Kalona has now become a milestone for the genre and a benchmark for urban warfare in video games that future titles must look to for inspiration.

Note: The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of, and should not be attributed to, GamingBolt as an organization.

“We’re making the right decisions to reinvest in the business after an all-time low; we’ve started to return to growth, more than 2 to 3 times what we were, and we expect that to continue.” When talking about “an all-time low”, Sharma is referring to the price hikes for Game Pass from last year, which resulted in many simply opting to discontinue their subscriptions.

The same time period also involved a decline in how many hours players were spending with Xbox games, as well as the revenue brought in with new releases and services. For now, the company is seemingly on more stable ground. She referred to the previous Game Pass strategy as sending Xbox into “freefall” when it came to commercial performance.

Looking forward, Sharma spoke about the “strong” starts seen by games like Gears of War: E-Day, Minecraft Dungeons 2, and even the beta for World of Warcraft Forever, which have contributed to a 30 percent improvement in sentiment about the company. The most recent of these releases is Gears of War: E-Day, which came to PC and Xbox Series X/S this week.

When it comes to other platforms, Sharma discussed how the company hopes to grow its Windows audience through Xbox PC and Battle.net. The latter is seeing an expansion with third-party games coming in, like The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Remastered. “We will do it the right way for those communities”, she said on the subject, while also noting that Blizzard’s Battle.net is almost on par with Steam when it comes to user retention.

When it comes to third-party support, Sharma spoke about making things easier for publishers by streamlining APIs so that releasing a game on Xbox across console and PC becomes simpler. The same processes will also seemingly help bring games to Xbox’s next-generation console, Project Helix.

While the layoffs signalled to some that Microsoft is looking at how it could turn Xbox into a lean business that could be attractive to potential buyers, Sharma recently said that “Xbox is not for sale.”

“We will do whatever it takes to set the company up for success, and we will look at the right partnerships, the right operating model and everything needed to achieve that,” she explained in an interview. However, she also acknowledged that it won’t be a quick and easy process for Xbox to return to becoming healthy. “We’ve got a long way to go with Microsoft, and we’re going to take the long-term view.”

When Sharma first announced layoffs affecting around 1,600 employees, she said that the company’s profit margins were “3-10x lower than comparable platform and publishing businesses” across the gaming industry. She also noted that Xbox had spread itself too thin with acquisitions and other projects that didn’t end up offering the return on investment that the company was looking for.

“What will be the big new feature for The Elder Scrolls 6? I think boats and potentially even naval combat are the natural ones,” he told GoHumanize.

“Moving vehicles is not something that The Elder Scrolls has never really had. You had carriages that would take you from place to place, but most players only did that once. It didn’t really add anything.”

That could change in the sequel, especially if it features Iliac Bay, as some fans have theorized. “You’re setting yourself up for a big expansion into seafaring stuff, and even if you never go under the water, think about all the things you could do on top of the water.

“It could be really cool. We might get entire skill trees allowing you to walk on water or have boats that allow you to do more than just sail your boat. There could be all kinds of unique creatures and spells that could work with water too.

“To me, that would be an opening you take real advantage of, because there is a lot of stuff there and I think it would be very exciting for the team working on it too.”

He even believes it could be a “dragon-level feature,” and even lead to new threats. “You’d have to have a kraken. I mean sharks and krakens are the two obvious ones, and Sea Elves. Sea Elves are a thing in the lore, but I don’t think they’ve ever made an appearance in the games in any significant way, and their lore is so broad.”

However, Nesmith draws the line at underwater exploration. “One of the designers was pushing very hard for an underwater environment in Fallout 4, and they made a bunch of proof of concept stuff to show how cool it could be, but at the end of the day, it proved to be just too much, and they didn’t pull the trigger on it in a broader way.

“I don’t believe it is true to say that there was a plan to do that underwater section, with the vault, and that it didn’t make it into the game. I think it was more a matter of somebody on the team who was really pushing for it, and he had a lot of really good ideas, but it’s that old adage. You can’t do everything.”

If he worked on The Elder Scrolls 6, he would “kibosh anything underwater,” keeping the action above sea level. “I’d rather do this part really well rather than do both of these parts not so well.”

Of course, whether Nesmith likes it or not, we have no way of knowing whether The Elder Scrolls 6 will feature any of the above. The most recent updates from Bethesda are that recent layoffs haven’t affected the game’s development roadmap. Xbox CEO Asha Sharma also visited the studio for a demonstration and said its “scale and grandeur are incredible.” She wouldn’t comment on whether it’s an Xbox console exclusive, however.

Perhaps the only potential hint, funnily enough, is that it could be called “Sentinel” (and from Starfield, no less). Time will tell, so stay tuned for updates.

Well, if you’re wondering about how it’s going to perform on your platform of choice, we can tell you that things are looking, and feeling, real good this time around. There’s a major visual leap that merits further discussion, but not before we get into what’s on offer on each playable platform and how the game makes use of what it’s got with each configuration.

To that end, it’s a good idea to begin with the Xbox Series X and how Marcus’ early days are brought to life on it.

 A Range Of Options On The Series X

It’s the usual round of offerings on the Series X, with Quality, Balanced, and Performance being your options, something that’s become a sort of standard for the beefier versions of current-gen hardware.

The Quality Mode sets things at 30fps in exchange for “higher visual fidelity”; Performance goes for 60fps to ensure “smooth motion and responsiveness”, while Balanced targets 40fps while bridging the gap between the other two modes on the visual front, although it does need a 120Hz display. If you’re planning on hosting 3-4 player co-op in the Campaign, it’s worth knowing that even Performance is going to target 30 fps.

We’ve got a few general observations to go over before tackling how each mode performs and which one is our pick for this particular experience. Gears of War: E-Day is a busy game, and there’s an astounding amount of stuff happening on your screen, whether it’s right in front of you or in the background, with the lighting working hard to illuminate each scene with aplomb, while the sound design really sells the action alongside some great voice acting. It looks stunning at night, with atmospheric lighting and rich global illumination bringing Kalona’s devastated streets to life.

Kalona is a city under attack, and the balance between its proud structures that are still untouched by the locust conflict and desolate areas where that fight has already unfolded helps showcase a level of detail that deserves all the praise we can give it. The presentation here definitely lends itself well to the Quality Mode’s visuals, but is that FPS nerf something we could live with in a game like this?

Let’s begin with buildings around Kalona that are still intact. Look at a glass panel on one of them when you’re playing on Quality, and you’re going to see reflections that shift with your own perspective, the light behaving exactly as it would if you were actually there. The gentle glow of the sun serves to better underline the suffocating darkness of the shadows if you’re out in the city at night, chasing down whatever new objective prevents Fenix and his Squad from getting a well-deserved break.

Textures and volumetric effects, of which smoke and fog do occur quite often as you’d expect from a city-turned-warzone, are all very immersive touches that help sell the impression that you’re trying to save a city under siege. Every firefight comes with explosions, particle effects, environmental destruction that happens in real time, and, of course, gunplay that’s quite responsive in the hands while it looks and feels very satisfying to execute on screen.

Of course, the Performance Mode is where that gunplay is really going to shine, and it was the option we defaulted to for most of our playtime. It simply is the best way to enjoy this one’s combat, and while it does achieve that by sacrificing reflections and a bit of visual flair, it isn’t inferior by any means, and looks good enough to make it easy to recommend.

There is the Balanced Option for those of you who can take that dip in frame rates for improved visuals, but it’s going to come down to personal taste. We do recommend trying each one out for yourself since they’re all worthy options to experience a game whose visual polish is a noteworthy upgrade from the last appearance in the franchise.

But it is worth mentioning that performance on the Series X was excellent across the board, with nary any stuttering or dropped frames to dispel the immersion and engagement that comes so easily once E-Day gets some momentum going.

An Absolute Beast On PC

You’re probably thinking that the console version getting as much praise as it has spells good news for those of you playing this one on PC. You’re certainly correct, although there are minor concerns.

Our test machine had an RTX 3080 Ti, Ryzen 9 5900X, and 32 GB RAM, running every setting from High to Ultra for different test scenarios, with 4K output and DLSS set to Ultra Performance. A brief rundown on PC settings options is needed here. There are also a lot of ways to tweak the experience to your liking, with sliders for the effects, reflections, ray tracing geometry, post-processing, motion blur, animation, and cosmetic quality, a bunch of settings around ray tracing, and so many more to allow you to make changes and get the best out of the game on your machine.

Note that E-Day is an extremely demanding game, so our frame rates were hovering around 30 to 50 fps during particularly chaotic combat moments. As expected, these visual improvements create a distinct divide from the console release, solidifying this as the definitive platform for the game.

While the Series X did put up a surprisingly good fight, it cannot hope to match the superior detailing and lighting that add a lot of immersion to the often chaotic scenes you’re going to experience throughout the game. The reflections are more detailed, while a cleaner overall image is sustained very well across the chaos that unfolds, often abruptly enough that we’d have allowed the game a slight margin of error to catch up.

It doesn’t need it, though, as we saw a very stable image no matter how intense things were getting on screen. We’ve mentioned how things can get very busy, but allow us to paint you a picture of a set piece that occurs relatively early in the story. You’re looking down on the city with the barrel of a machine gun in front of you, and the Locust forces are not very happy with your aerial assault.

There are ground troops and explosive cans to take them out with, seeders launching projectiles that you must shoot down almost constantly, Locust soldiers moving around to try and get around your sightlines, the environmental destruction that stems from explosions along with particle effects, all against the backdrop of a city whose crumbling splendor is on proud display.

Those reflections in the glass panels on buildings? They’re noticeably better on PC, as are the ones in puddles that you step in from time to time. Rays of light aren’t just from the sun or lamps, but from Marcus’s armor and the world around him, all of them lighting up the world with a glow that’s very welcome in narrative moments where things are tense, and the shadows feature deep black levels that enhance contrast and highlight the ruined state of Kalona’s infrastructure.

The shadows and volumetrics are another highlight, along with excellent detailing and brilliant visual design that really help sell the setting of a city facing a siege against an enemy that is able to brush aside its defences with relative ease. Of course, getting into a battle is as smooth as it can get, and the new cover mechanics and movement systems really come to life with the improved visual fidelity on PC.

Even so, with so much happening during heavy action, noticeable performance drops occur from time to time. We wouldn’t call those game-breaking, but they were momentary lapses that stood out given how well the rest of the experience was presented and polished.

All in all, it’s very impressive that E-Day has been able to present such a level of visual quality on our PC while sustaining performance consistently enough, with only minor issues to break the spell Kalona casts on you.

Taking Gears Into The Future

You might be wondering about how well E-Day stacks up against Gears 5, especially after the latter received that upgrade for the Series X that made it quite the looker. However, The Coalition’s latest offering benefits from being an exclusively current-gen title, with improved detailing on the world and character models marking a tangible upgrade over its predecessor.

That’s quite a compliment given how Gears 5 was already so darn good at bringing the franchise’s signature blend of chaos and melancholic beauty to life. That chaos is another difference, and the sheer amount of environmental detail that shifts alongside the tide of battle is something you’re going to notice quite quickly in E-Day.

Of course, the new movement, animations, cover system, and the general quality of gunplay are also upgrades that are going to stand out. When you consider all of that against better textures, lighting systems, and the overall polish on the presentation, E-Day is definitely a step forward for the franchise’s design language, and is sure to contribute to everything we see from the franchise after it.

Kalona’s a big part of that, and is a design choice that allows The Coalition to retain enough creative control over what unfolds in front of you while allowing for a bit of player agency alongside levels designed to sustain the intensity of each fight no matter how long it lasts. Its architecture boasts of a time when humanity’s peaceful era led to some real progress, all of it now put at risk by the events of The Emergence.

As ground zero for the events of the franchise that follow its demise, Kalona City is the perfect stage for E-Day to tell its story. It’s how the game manages to present a sense of scale and spectacle while also managing to sell each fight as a desperate struggle for control of an area. It crumbles around you as the action unfolds, a constant reminder of the stakes for which you’re fighting. It’s the facilitator of a generational leap for the franchise, and a great one at that.

Know that we don’t say that lightly. Gears of War: E-Day is a game that comes together very well, bringing the excellence of individual technical systems to a canvas that makes even a fight that unfolds organically feel like it’s been scripted. It’s Gears as you know it, but graphically dialed up to make that familiar experience push forward into a future where further innovations now feel like they’re an inevitability.

Those performance drops on PC didn’t bother us, but they are an area where the game could use a bit of fine-tuning. Of course, there’s always the possibility that they melt away with more powerful hardware or at a lower resolution, but despite those minor flaws, across every supported platform, this game represents a clear evolution.

Finding the right balance between graphical fidelity and smooth performance is straightforward on Xbox Series X, thanks to its versatile display options, while its PC version shows you what it can do when you really push it to its limits.

No matter which one you’re playing, Gears of War: E-Day is a great tech showcase and is quite clearly one of the best-looking games of this generation.

“We will do whatever it takes to set the company up for success, and we will look at the right partnerships, the right operating model and everything needed to achieve that.” However, setting the company up for growth won’t be an easy task. Sharma has acknowledged this, noting that “We’ve got a long way to go with Microsoft, and we’re going to take the long-term view.”

Sharma’s statement comes following massive layoffs, with the company cutting 1,600 jobs back in July across many studios, and even deciding to divest itself of four of its studios – Double Fine Productions, Undead Labs, Compulsion Games, and Ninja Theory. The company is also internally discussing the future for Arkane Lyon.

At the time, Sharma said that profit margins at Xbox were “3-10x lower than comparable platform and publishing businesses,” and that the company had spread itself too thin over the last decade by entering massive deals to acquire major companies.

“Since 2018, we have aggressively expanded our studio portfolio while the number of games created each month across the industry now outpaces the last ten years combined. We now find ourselves competing not only with the largest publishers, but also with smaller independent studios. It is neither possible nor desirable to own every great independent studio.

“We have also learned that we are not the best home for every type of studio; in a typical year, we lost 64 cents for every dollar we invested. As we reset Xbox, we will help independent creators succeed by providing open development tools and audiences to realize their vision.”

While Sharma said at the time that around 1,600 more cuts were planned before the end of the fiscal year, a more recent report indicates that Xbox might be trying to avoid hitting that target number by moving its employees around to different teams rather than laying them off altogether. Divesting studios also seems to be a major part of this plan.

Xbox recently went through another round of layoffs, affecting 268 roles across various studios. As part of the move, the company has also decided to consolidate many of its studios and has even announced that a new Halo project is being developed by Activision. Halo Studios, on the other hand, will keep a “small team” that will continue to support older games.

World’s Edge and Rare are also being brought under the Activision umbrella, while Obsidian is coming under Bethesda. Turn 10 Studios – the team behind Forza Motorsport – is being merged with Forza Horizon and Fable developer Playground Games.

More details will likely be revealed in the coming weeks, since Xbox CCO Matt Booty has confirmed that there will be an all-Xbox meeting to “reflect on our progress and look ahead to one of the strongest game lineups in our history.”