Well, Netflix’s attempt to bring the franchise to the silver screen might be a tad more successful at, you know, actually making it there, considering that it has a director known for crafting great action films. But Xbox seems quite intent on seeing its plans for the film through this time around.

Although details about it are scarce, other than David Leitch’s attachment to the project, recent statements in an interview with Entertainment Weekly suggest that the film will explore “the origin story of Delta Squad, a ragtag crew of soldiers who wage a desperate war for survival against the Locust, a race of subterranean creatures set on destroying humanity,” signalling a plot that could look at the time between E-Day and the first title in the franchise.

“The game really is about the bonds between teams. It’s about brotherhood at its core,” says Xbox CCO Matt Booty. “When you go visit the studio, their tagline is ‘Never Fight Alone.’ So when you think about that for a dramatic narrative, it’s a pretty good starting point.”

Of course, that could mean Marcus Fenix isn’t going to be a popular one, his rebellious nature a potential roadblock to the kind of brotherhood that the squad aims to build. It could be quite a good look at why we found him incarcerated in the early moments of the first title, despite his obvious talent and righteous nature often coming into play over the course of that story.

Time will tell if that’s the case, but you can be sure that we’re going to be on the edge of our seats, staring at our screens with rapt attention when this one finally comes along.

“Active Reload has always been a massive part of Gears; it’s an iconic feature,” he told GamesRadar. “For E-Day, we’ve moved the Active Reload bar to the middle of the screen by default.”

If you want, it can be shifted to the top right, but Searcy says that testing indicated that “the bar being in the middle of the screen is where people actually use Active Reload the most. It becomes part of their shooting experience.”

But that’s not all, as certain weapons have “additional Active Reload mechanics.” Noticed how Marcus reloads a Gnasher’s shells, one at a time? That’s one example. “If you want to at any time, you can pull a trigger to stop your reload, keep the two or three shells that you loaded, and then use them on the enemy that’s right in front of you – if you’re willing to give up your Active bonus,” he said.

Bonuses for Active and Perfect Reloads are nothing new, whether it’s in bonus damage or increased fire rates. However, The Coalition seems to be leaning into fundamentally changing a weapon’s behavior, allowing you to forego the mechanic entirely depending on the situation. How could this potentially work for other weapons? Time will tell, but it’s an intriguing way to mix up a familiar system without messing with what works.

Gears of War: E-Day launches on October 6th for Xbox Series X/S and PC. It’s an Xbox console-exclusive alongside Clockwork Revolution – not timed and supposedly only the start of further exclusives.

Touted at over 14 hours long, E-Day’s story lets you control any of the four members of Bravo Squad from the start, including newcomers Mags Carter and Lukas Reyes. Creative director Matt Searcy told GamesRadar that, “We made the decision to support four-player co-op to reflect an aspect of how the core Gears DNA feels. Our stories are almost always about a four-person squad, right?

“We set a goal from the very beginning of development that we wanted you to be able to play as every single character. So in our campaign, you can pick any of the characters from the story – the story will be told entirely from that perspective, and you’ll never leave their side.” The overall treatment has been described as “very intimate” and “kind of like Band of Brothers or Saving Private Ryan, where you’re following this group and they aren’t always going to be in the right place at the right time.”

However, Searcy reveals that it was also a “huge investment.” Aside from each squad member having tons of detailed facial animations and individual voice lines reacting to events, The Coalition had to shape its environments to accommodate four-player co-op.

“We have had modes that have supported four-player co-op in them in the past, and clearly they work, so this was all about building the right spaces at the right sizes. You know, we build to make sure the game plays great in single-player, in two-player co-op, and then in three- and four-player co-op as well,” said Searcy.

So while it’s still enjoyable for solo players, as the squad is with you every step of the way, the team believes “in the co-op experience too, as you get to try different tactics and experiment with multiple things at once in our larger combat arenas – it’s a lot of fun.”

While you’ll have to wait until October 6th to experience Gears of War: E-Day’s campaign (October 1st with the Premium Edition), fans can expect a sampler of multiplayer sometime in August. That’s when the beta hits, potentially offering the first look at the new Versus maps. Whether it will also include the new 12-player Horde Siege is unknown, but more details on both are coming regardless, so stay tuned.

The fact that the team rebuilt all of its assets for Gears of War: E-Day also explains why the game took so long to develop, with The Coalition’s last entry being 2019’s Gears 5.

In the tech demo, which you can check out below, we get a close look at the various settings of Gears of War: E-Day, from the ruined outdoor environments to stores that have been left in a bloody mess by the Locust springing its surprise attack on the humans of Sera. The video also notes that the demo was running on an Xbox Series X at a frame rate of 60 FPS.

“In previous games, a space like this was limited to three shadowcasters in view,” explained Rayner as she gave a tour of one of Kalona’s large stores. “With MegaLights, we now have hundreds of light sources, all casting shadows at 60 frames per second on Xbox Series X.”

She also went on to discuss other features of Unreal Engine 5 that were used for the space, like animated area lights for a TV display wall. The tech allowed the studio to create a moody atmosphere thanks to how the TVs are able to cast soft shadows and act as their own light sources, all rendered entirely on the GPU.

Unreal Engine 5 also allowed The Coalition to include dynamic geometry throughout the space, like pillars lined with tiles. When shot at, the pillar remains unaffected, while its various tiles realistically break apart and fall down. Similarly, various refrigerators also have completely destroyable glass windows, complete with realistically-refracted light depending on damage like individual bullet holes.

“There is no way we’d ever be able to achieve this effect, or have this many ray-traced area lights on current-generation hardware without MegaLights,” said Rayner.

The technology also has tangible effects on gameplay, with Rayner showcasing how volumetric light and fog work whenever new Locusts pop up through their E-holes. “One of the things we’re super excited about that was unthinkable in the past is having shadows on every single one of our muzzle flashes. This is a really great improvement that adds to the dynamic combat of Gears, with a more believable firing experience that puts you right in the middle of the action like never before,” she said.

Creative director Matt Searcy, brand director Nicole Fawcette, art director Aryan Hanbeck, along with Rayner, had previously discussed how Gears of War: E-Day is the studio’s first game since 2015 to not reuse any assets or code.

Gears of War: E-Day is being developed for PC and Xbox Series X/S, and is slated for release on October 6th. It will also be one of the first recent games, along with 2027’s Clockwork Revolution, to be console-exclusive to the Xbox Series X/S.

A new tech demo, showcased below, is the source of our amazement, featuring Marcus Fenix walking around a small slice of the city of Kondora. He visits a derelict store, and it’s there that the new lighting systems come into play. Shadows and reflections look ever so natural, and the Xbox Series X’s ray-tracing chops are shown off in all their glory. The demo presents a multitude of scenarios, each of which has different elements in the environment reactions naturally to your actions, while the light from even shards of glass bounces off them just as you’d expect it to in the real world. Even the lights from Marcus’s armor cast their own shadows!

Things are equally good when you’re out on the streets or when the fog from an E-Hole casts a red hue on the area around it. The volumetrics are spot-on, and we’re going to be watching this one again once we’re done telling you about it. Of course, it remains to be seen if the entire 14-hour campaign can sustain such a level of quality, and if the ray tracing is going to have to give way to the multiplayer modes’ 120 fps target, but we see no reason to believe that it’s going to be a solid showing all around when this one drops on October 6 this year for Xbox and PC.

What you probably didn’t expect is that it’s allegedly “upwards of $400 million,” according to Tom Henderson. On the latest Insider Gaming podcast, he called the budget “insane,” and criticized the decision to make it an Xbox console exclusive, which was reportedly made “five or six weeks ago.” That would certainly line up with the now-pulled trailer featuring the PS5 logo and run counter to The Coalition claiming that it was never in the works for PS5.

Such massive budgets for big-name games are nothing new nowadays – even Marathon reportedly cost nearly $250 million to develop. But you have to remember that marketing has only just begun and that $400 million-plus figure probably doesn’t account for post-launch support. The Coalition confirmed a seasonal roadmap, but it didn’t specify exactly what fans could expect (though new Versus maps seem a given).

Gears of War: E-Day launches on October 6th for Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC. You can head here to learn more about all the new features, but suffice it to say that Xbox has an uphill battle with making it a success.

But even with a more detailed city and optional objectives, The Coalition is sticking to a linear story. That said, creative director Matt Searcy told IGN that it will be “longer than any campaign” from the studio yet at over 14 hours. He also promised even more collectibles, including the returning COG Tags.

Of course, there was also some clarification on mechanics like jumping. In short, don’t expect E-Day to turn into the next 3D Mario. It’s meant more for exploiting those fancy new flanking routes instead of jumping “across multiple levels.” And if you’re looking to freshen things up even while solo, all of Bravo Squad is playable when the campaign starts, says brand director Nicole Fawcette.

Gears of War: E-Day is out on October 6th for Xbox Series X/S and PC. An open beta kicks off in August, but The Coalition promises more details on multiplayer in the future after choosing to focus on the campaign in its first Direct. Here’s hoping we learn more about the ambitious 12-player Horde Siege alongside the post-launch plan.

“We have a kickass concept art team, and our art book is going to rock.”

The team also discussed creating a brand-new prequel story set in the universe while still preserving all of the lore. Pointing to the scene where Tai makes his appearance in the showcase trailer, Searcy said that even the dialogue of the scene was lifted from the Gears of War: Jacinto’s Remnant novel.

“We worked really hard to keep the canon intact,” Searcy said. “Honestly, lifting the Tai moment out and putting it in this place was probably the biggest single thing we’ve done, and we kept it intact, like we kept the moment intact. We just relocated where and when exactly it happened in the canon. Even the dialogue in the cinematic is basically lifted from the book.”

This idea of picking up moments discussed in other Gears of War media and putting them into their games was referred to by Fawcette as “lift and shift”. Searcy went on to discuss the overarching lore, noting that what we’ve seen in the games represents a tiny fraction of what would actually be going on during Emergence Day on planet Sera.

“If you think about what’s been talked about in Gears lore, it’s a tiny amount of what would exist on Sera,” he explained. “It’s like a few cities, it’s a few major battles, it’s some specifics. Every time we tackle a new story, and especially with this one, we’re trying to expand not just what we’re telling the story about — the new characters here, the history of Kalona, how it was involved in the Pendulum War effort, how it might have positioned itself to be in the world that was lost, why people care about Kalona. Why is the military even bothering to try to save this [city]?”

“All of those things make all of the other stories better because it enriches how the world connects and sets us up to tell new stories. Because while we answer [some questions], we’ll open up new questions as well. Plus we’re bringing back some fan favorites, but we’re adding a whole bunch of new characters too.”

While the team has said plenty of things about the upcoming title’s campaign, little has been revealed about its competitive multiplayer modes. Fawcette recently confirmed that more information about the multiplayer will be revealed as we get closer to the October 6th launch of Gears of War: E-Day on PC and Xbox Series X/S.

“It’s coming! This is our gameplay reveal; we haven’t shown anything of this game, so we really wanted to set that groundwork.”

“Well, we never talked about it going to PS5,” he told Eurogamer. Regarding the purported change in plans, Fawcette went on to add that, “It was never changed.” Further in the conversation, Searcy spoke about how Gears of War: E-Day makes sense as an Xbox-exclusive release. “I would say that, Gears as an exclusive, makes a tonne of sense,” he said. “It’s kind of an honour, and exciting, to be one of the Xbox flagship titles.”

However, with console exclusivity also comes a much smaller audience, especially since Xbox consoles are fairly behind the PS5 in its install base. When asked about this, Searcy, along with art director Aryan Hanbeck, said that they weren’t too concerned about shipping the game to a smaller audience.

“Of course, it’s awesome to have [more] people play our games, but for Xbox and PC, you’ve got what is out there. We’re not too concerned about the size of the audience,” Hanbeck added. “We’ve shipped to audiences smaller before, and there are great shooters on Xbox already.”

Gears of War: E-Day is being developed for PC and Xbox Series X/S, and is slated for release on October 6th. The title got an extensive showcase last weekend via a dedicated Direct. Xbox also confirmed Clockwork Revolution, inXile’s next title, would not be coming to PS5 and further clarified the exclusivity isn’t time-limited for either.

“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,” said the company in a statement. “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.”

Searcy, Hanbeck and technical director Kate Rayner had recently also spoken about how Gears of War: E-Day was The Coalition’s first entry in the franchise since 2015 that reused zero assets from previous games during development. To do this, the three spoke about how useful Unreal Engine 5 was throughout the process.

“We took advantage of UE5 to bring Gears up to speed with where modern gaming is, without losing what makes it authentic,” Searcy said. “You’re playing a sweaty Gears game — but it’s entirely built from scratch to capture the emotional core of those older games.”

Hanbeck also spoke about leaning on the horror-adjacent elements that the Gears franchise was known for in its earlier entries. “We wanted to lean into the horror-adjacent elements Gears always had. Light and dark, getting into scarier spaces, dynamic shadows. This tech lets us do that in a way we couldn’t before. You really don’t want to tell that story if you can’t deliver on the visual gravitas of what has to go with it. It deserves a certain amount of weight.”

Brand director Nicole Fawcette has stepped in to assure us that more reveals are on the way. In an interview with Eurogamer, she confirmed that details about bringing your pals along were deliberately minimized from the initial showcase to better focus on everything it’s bringing to the table.

“It’s coming! This is our gameplay reveal; we haven’t shown anything of this game, so we really wanted to set that groundwork. Especially from that reveal trailer, which was really cinematic, to show the world the characters and story. We have a lot coming.” Which is understandable, given how important the story and setting can be.

Regardless, it’s definitely good news especially amid all that confusion about platform exclusivity that’s put a damper on what was a very exciting Direct. Even more exciting is the potential return of campaign co-op, which puts you and your buddies in control of Bravo Squad.

“There’s an intersection between gameplay mechanics, story, and characters. So even if you’re playing a multiplayer mode in Gears, you’re playing as canonical characters with personality. There’s this vibe when you have these four characters interacting with each other, four players with all sorts of mechanics in play.”

We’re going to wait until there’s more information, but there’s already a lot to cheer about, with the game bringing brand-new assets and a lot of new mechanics to the table.

Gears of War: E-Day is out on October 6th for Xbox Series X/S and PC. Thus far, The Coalition has confirmed the return of Versus, the series’ staple PvP mode with new maps, and Horde. However, the latter has expanded ridiculously with Siege, as 12 players across three squads will team up across the cityscape to battle the Locust.