Gears of War: E-Day Out Everywhere Today: Split Reviews, Launch Records, and the Xbox Exclusivity Shake-Up#

Hello everyone, Longzhiri here. At eleven tonight, Beijing time, Gears of War: E-Day unlocks simultaneously on every platform, and Xbox’s annual flagship formally touches down. As a third-person shooter veteran who has been chainsawing Lancers since the original, I have waited seven years for this day — the last mainline entry, Gears 5, was all the way back in 2019, and this time the Microsoft-owned studio has spun the timeline straight back to where the whole story began: the day of Emergence Day itself.

Launch day, though, carries far more information than expected: media scores split in a way you almost never see, with IGN handing out a 9 while The Guardian gives a 6; Steam early-access concurrency surged to 20,374, doubling the previous series record outright; the PS5 version’s fate played out as a whodunit running half a year; and one sidelight that stings — narrative director Juan Vaca was laid off five days after the game went gold. In this piece I’ll walk through all of it in the order players actually care about, and help you decide: buy in tonight, or just wait for Game Pass.

1. Unlock Times and Editions: Every Platform Opens at the Same Second, No Time-Zone Staggering#

There is no “rolling unlock by region” gimmick this time — the doors open worldwide at the same instant. The specific times:

On editions and pricing: the Standard Edition is $69.99, the Premium Edition $99.99. Premium’s extras include the 5 days of early access, the Bravo Squad weapon pack, seasonal cosmetics, and in-game currency. By the way: on October 1 there were reports that the Premium Edition briefly vanished from the Steam store, while on October 2 Steam data still showed $99.99 — in hindsight, a false alarm, but if you are buying Premium tonight, double-check the store page before checking out.

1.1 The Game Pass Tiers: Only Two Confirmed for Day One#

This is the single most important table for this year’s purchase decision. Microsoft’s stance is tiered — don’t let “day one on Game Pass” gloss over it:

So the decision path is actually clear: if you hold Ultimate or PC Game Pass, download tonight and play at no extra cost; if you are on a lower tier, nothing has been promised for day one — don’t assume. Separately, subscribers can buy the Premium Upgrade as a paid top-up in exchange for the 5-days-early privilege — but with the full unlock live today, that head-start window has closed, and the upgrade’s remaining value is only the later content.

As for the buy-it-once crowd, my take: finish section two before deciding. This game’s review structure is unusual enough that buying on “86 aggregate” alone will likely misalign with your actual experience.

2. Reading the Reviews: What Separates an 88 From a 6#

2.1 The Aggregate Snapshot#

Data first. Reviews went live in a cluster when early access unlocked on October 1; here is how the aggregates moved:

2.2 Outlet-by-Outlet Disagreement#

An 86 aggregate reads like a word-of-mouth blockbuster, but lay the individual scores out and the distribution is remarkably wide:

2.3 How to Actually Read the Split#

How do you parse this report card? I see three key points.

First, this batch of reviews covers only the single-player campaign. Polygon made a point of flagging this during the embargo window: Horde Siege and Versus multiplayer servers were not open during the review period, and Game Informer simply ran an unscored “review in progress.” In other words, every score right now is the score of half a game. Multiplayer quality will materially move the final aggregate, and Polygon’s forecast is that the final number most likely settles back toward the level of Gears 5 rather than the original trilogy. Waiting for stable servers and completed reviews before concluding anything is the rational posture.

Second, the two camps are not even arguing about the same things. Pull the concerns apart and the disagreement is quite clean:

Honestly, these two sets of takes do not contradict each other — the movement improvements are real, and the campaign’s bloated length is just as real. I can enjoy sliding into cover one minute and sigh at the fifteenth identical side outpost the next. The 86 Metacritic average is, in essence, those two experiences averaged together.

Third, the PC version carries its own separate deductions. Forced-on ray tracing drives the hardware bar way up, and foreign reviews name-checked it repeatedly. Adrenaline scored the PC version 90/100 while also listing the missing weapon-upgrade system and audio bugs among concrete issues. When reading the aggregates as a PC player, treat the 84 as “the score on hardware that meets spec” — your actual frame-rate experience is a separate conversation.

3. The Prequel’s Job: The Clock Set Back to Emergence Day, 14 Years Earlier#

For series newcomers, the setup first: this game sits 14 years before the original Gears of War, on Emergence Day itself, in the city of Kalona. You play young versions of Marcus Fenix and Dom Santiago — the golden duo of the first game in their youth — with the whole of Bravo Squad playable. The campaign supports single-player, two-player split-screen on console, and online co-op.

The developers say the campaign runs past 14 hours, the longest in the studio’s history; Tom’s Hardware Italia clocked roughly 17 hours; some outlets estimate 20–25 hours for full completion. Generous numbers — but note PC Gamer’s critique that the campaign is a 20-plus-hour “slog.” Length and density are two different things, and that is worth thinking through before you buy.

Multiplayer is the new headline: the brand-new Horde Siege mode supports 12-player co-op, split into three squads of four defending Kalona, with four classes — Assault, Marksman, Medic, and Breacher; traditional Versus is 4v4 across ranked and casual. The game is built by The Coalition with People Can Fly contributing development — the latter previously led Gears of War: Judgment — and is built on Unreal Engine 5 (UE5).

4. Steam Concurrency Sets a Series Record: The Number Is Real, but Read the Basis#

4.1 The Series Comparison Table#

The early-access Steam numbers are genuinely pretty. Peak concurrency as logged by SteamDB:

The earlier preorder closed beta (August 6–10) already peaked at 14,331, breaking the series record at the time; the open beta then ran August 13–17. So from August to October, E-Day has broken the series’ Steam record twice, and the full game only unlocked today — the record will most likely keep climbing (final figures per SteamDB’s ongoing logs; anything after this card’s retrieval time does not exist yet, and I won’t guess).

4.2 The Record’s Value Needs a Discount#

Still, let me pour some cold water on the hype: 20,374 comes with three “onlys”:

In other words, this is a floor, not a ceiling — the day-one volume on the Game Pass side is entirely invisible. The reverse reminder also holds: don’t compare 20,374 directly against the blockbusters that launched across every channel at once.

There is also a third-party read on the preorder side: Alinea Analytics analyst Rhys Elliot estimates roughly 120,000 Steam preorders and calls that figure “soft.” Note: this is an analyst estimate whose methodology has not been published, confirmed by neither Valve nor Microsoft — use it as a reference point, not an official battle report.

5. The PS5 Whodunit: From “Reportedly in the Plans” to “Official Denial”#

This is probably the most delicate thread of launch day, and it deserves its own timeline table:

How to read this whodunit? My take: the anonymous-source version — “it was planned, then cut late” — and the official version — “never planned at all” — simply cannot both be right; one side is reshaping memory. On the media side, multiple outlets report the PS5 version entered planning; on Microsoft’s side, the company denies a last-minute cancellation — both sides chose their words with room to spare, and the truth most likely sits in between.

The most direct ledger impact was run by Alinea’s Rhys Elliot: he estimates roughly 120,000 soft Steam preorders and argues Microsoft should not have cut the PS5 version (reportedly, that port was already in development); he views E-Day and Clockwork Revolution as games meant to “showcase Xbox platform loyalty” rather than to chase sales. That is an analyst’s read too, but the logic is worth chewing on — Microsoft seems to care more about using exclusives as a platform moat than about maximizing any single title’s revenue.

An instructive comparison: Halo: Campaign Evolved, carrying the same Xbox first-party shooter-flagship title, went the multiplatform route — a clean fork from this game’s exclusivity strategy. One flagship casts a wide net while the other guards the home gate, and there is currently no unified answer on whether Microsoft’s platform strategy is tightening or loosening.

Also, per IGN’s reporting, Microsoft has additionally committed to not bringing its exclusives to rival platforms — a claim that, for now, exists only in media retellings with no verbatim official document. Take it lightly until Microsoft puts it in writing itself.

6. UE5 and 115GB: The Series’ Heaviest Debut Yet#

6.1 PC Requirements#

The requirements published on the Steam page are below; the standout feature is that ray-tracing-capable hardware is a hard requirement:

A few things worth noting: first, the VRAM bar shuts out the GTX line and every non-ray-tracing card — players on older machines should check their GPU before ordering; second, minimum and recommended storage are both 115GB, a very real problem for anyone with a tight SSD.

6.2 Install and Preload#

The Xbox version adds a considerate touch: the install splits into Campaign, Horde Siege, and Versus portions, so you can skip the parts you won’t play and save space. One caution: some outlets wrote 130GB, which conflicts with Steam’s official 115GB — go with the official figure, and don’t let it scare you into clearing your drive.

6.3 The Honest Word on Visuals#

Technically, the image-quality gains from Nanite and Lumen are real, and Kalona’s ruined-city atmosphere has already been flooding streams. The performance problems are real too: the stutter and frame drops mentioned earlier made multiple reviews’ criticism lists, and the forced-ray-tracing controversy on PC has not settled. One line to sum up: this is the series’ visual peak — but not a visual peak everyone can run smoothly.

7. Narrative Director Cut Five Days After Going Gold: The Other Numbers Behind Launch Day#

Last, a story with nothing to do with how the game plays and everything to do with how this game came to be.

Vaca joined The Coalition in 2022 as narrative director. On September 17, he personally announced the game had gone gold (the master build pressed); the official word came on September 18. Just five days later, on September 22, he wrote on LinkedIn: “I’m part of this round of Microsoft layoffs.” — that is the wave of 268 cuts announced by Xbox chief Matt Booty in a memo titled “Continuing Our Reset” (some Chinese-language media logged September 23; mainstream reporting says September 22).

Eurogamer’s follow-up dig was harder to stomach: around Vaca’s layoff, a small group of other Coalition staff was quietly cut for reasons unrelated to the broader layoffs; employees broadly worried about being cut right after launch and missing the “Metacritic bonus” — an internal email confirmed the bonus exists, pays out around the end of October, and requires full-time status at payout; and per Eurogamer, Vaca and other recently laid-off staff remain eligible if they hit the targets. The mood inside the studio was “no celebrating until three months after launch,” more developers are preparing for the next wave of cuts, and Microsoft acknowledged the overtime in the final months and subsidized extra time off.

Zoom out one more layer, and this sits inside Microsoft’s 2026 layoff plan:

So the annual flagship we are playing tonight is a game its narrative director pressed into gold five days before being laid off, and half the studio did not dare celebrate until three months before launch. High scores are high scores — this set of numbers deserves to be known by every player.

Closing: How to Decide Tonight — My Three Recommendations#

Finally, the practical part. Weighing everything above, my advice splits three ways:

1. Game Pass Ultimate / PC Game Pass subscribers: download tonight and play the first few hours of the campaign at zero cost. Whether you like it is yours to judge — the risk-free way into this launch.
2. The buy-it-once crowd: if you are not in a hurry, wait until the Horde Siege and Versus multiplayer reviews are completed and the aggregate settles. Today’s 86 is the score of half a game, and Polygon expects it to drift back toward the level of Gears 5.
3. PC players: check two things first — whether your GPU supports hardware ray tracing, and whether your SSD has 115GB free. Missing either one, keep your wallet shut for now.

As for me, I’ll be on Game Pass at eleven sharp. Seven years on, getting to walk the streets of Kalona on Emergence Day itself and crouch into the first bit of cover beside a young Dom is worth the subscription fee all by itself. The scores, the records, the whodunit — those can wait until after the credits.

— Longzhiri, NTGame Editor-in-Chief