A prequel is always a risk. They usually rely on nostalgia and winks at the camera over good storytelling, and can end up alienating something that’s already beloved.
I had plenty of worries about Gears of War: E-Day before diving into the third-person shooter’s review build last week. Do we really need to go back in time and tell the story of the day the Locust invaded the Earth-like planet of Sera? Is the franchise way past its prime with nothing left to do or say?
Well, I’m happy to say that E-Day’s campaign is the best Gears I’ve experienced in a long time, probably since Gears of War 3. And it turns out that there is still some juice left in this franchise that’s been kicking around since the early days of the Xbox 360.
Writer’s note: A full, numbered review of Gears of War: E-Day is coming soon once the game’s multiplayer and Horde modes are accessible. Review access only contained the game’s campaign.
Terror, horror, gore by the bucketload
E-Day could easily be called Horrors of War, or Fog of War, because its narrative and missions are based around a genuinely terrifying experience: a massive army of monsters coming up from underneath the planet’s surface, swarming like a plague, decimating everything in its path. And you’re there to see it all unfold in real time as no one knows what the hell is happening.
Gears mainstays Marcus Fenix and Dominic Santiago (dealing with the grief of the recent loss of Dom’s brother and Marcus’s best friend Carlos) are joined by newcomers Mags Carter and Lucas Reyes, forming a squad by happenstance and necessity as the world is engulfed in terror around them. Mags is a grizzled veteran, and Reyes is the comic relief new guy, and the newly-formed squad bonds around their own unique traumas and mistakes. But the kinship the foursome builds pales in comparison to future ones consisting of teammates like Baird, Anya, or Cole Train.
After decades of war between human factions, the Locust arrive out of nowhere like a buzzsaw, in their scariest and most intimidating appearance in the series. Civilians are caught up in the fury, getting mowed down with reckless abandon by an enemy that at first seems feral, but the Gears quickly find there’s a lot more to the Locust bubbling beneath the surface. And that’s the charm of E-Day: finding it all out as it happens, being completely in the dark, watching the military scramble to figure things out as death consumes everything around you…all while dealing with the unimaginable losses piling up, on top of the losses already sustained.
E-Day’s missions offer a scary look into that reality of the moment as the city of Kalona is swallowed up by the swarm, evoking memories of Raccoon City quickly descending into chaos in the early Resident Evil games. That’s a big compliment, by the way. The Locust are unsettling and unnerving, and even though we’ve seen all these different enemy types before in the original trilogy and beyond, their sadistic nature still comes off in a disturbing way as humanity is introduced to an enemy it didn’t know it had. It’s awesome.
Throughout the events of E-Day, the Gears are losing, and losing badly. The situation progresses from terrible to completely fucked throughout its duration, which is easily the longest in the franchise, with a lot to do and even more enemies to deal with. Even as a prequel, I enjoyed the character moments and nods to the franchise even if the overarching storyline wasn’t all that engaging since it basically amounts to “just survive and try to fight back.”
It’s a terrifying scenario to imagine: after decades of war where civilians were taught to hide underground from air raids, they seek shelter there only to find that the new enemy is coming from beneath them, leading millions to slaughter. It’s chilling, and it’s illustrated in some very harrowing and emotional ways throughout the campaign, including some visceral deaths that depict some real ugliness of war.
Exploring Kalona while helping out whoever you can is a hit-or-miss experience, but an emotional one. Bodies lie all over the place, civilians run and scatter as Locust pop up from beneath them, and you can find remnants of makeshift field hospitals along the way. This story ends up feeling like one that was absolutely worth telling.
Though as a prequel, E-Day suffers from some of the same tropes as other franchises that have gone back in time: you can glean who is going to live or die since they are or are not included in other games later in the timeline, and some over-the-top “nostalgia” moments do exist (seeing the origin of how the Lancer got a chainsaw was both cool and a bit cringy), but they are not nearly as prevalent or ham-fisted as I would have expected going in. The trademark cheese is still there, too (I had to pause the game when I heard the Gears call out a new enemy for looking like “a ballsack”), so don’t worry about that going missing.
Still, hearing Marcus exclaim “NICE!” after a Perfect Reload? Never gets old.
A lot of meat
E-Day’s gameplay is a decent variety of different experiences, including classic linear Gears, but with some wrinkles to shake up the somewhat dated formula. There are several open-world segments where you’re free to explore a good chunk of Kalona while the main story mission lightly guides you, with even some Horde-like scenarios scattered throughout, encouraging you to set up defenses as Locust attack in waves. Later missions take you outside the city limits, too.
As you move through the streets of a city in disarray, you can find side quest objectives that pop up, such as helping civilians to safety or rescuing a squad of surrounded Gears as the Locust press the advantage. You’re free to ignore the open world and continue on a straight path, but these optional additions help further flesh out the unimaginable situation that these people have been placed in.
The moment-to-moment objectives are surrounded by a myriad of collectibles you can find throughout the game (they’re not difficult to seek out as your map will be marked and a minor flourish sound will play when you’re near something of interest), offering story beats or unique mods for your armor and wide array of Gears’ classic, fun weapons. Specific upgrades unfortunately seem to be random, but offer power-ups such as triggering passive healing with a Perfect Reload, or getting the Perfect Reload damage buff simply by killing an enemy in close quarters. In theory, you could build out a play style, but the randomness of finding the mods (either by dozens of Hard Cases throughout the city or finishing side quests) makes it a big shot in the dark, at least on a first playthrough.
These open world segments lengthen the campaign quite a bit if you choose to do so, but can also feel repetitive at times. Even still, I found it as a welcome change of pace from Gears’ typical corridor gameplay, and bouncing back and forth between the two kept the pacing fresh for me. Even if you cruise through these open world bits, there’s plenty of replay value otherwise when it comes to finding all collectibles or even just increasing the difficulty (the odds and enemies can feel overwhelming at times, even on the normal base difficulty level), and playing with friends in four-player co-op, which the game is built around. Add in a couple of on-rails vehicle segments, and there’s enough variety to keep things from ever feeling too mundane.
E-Day also feels way different than previous games thanks to a new, modernized movement system. I was very against it at first, thinking to myself, ‘how am I supposed to sprint without the camera zooming up my ass while holding down the A button?’ But after playing through the campaign, I think that it feels way better, and I don’t think I could go back to the feel of the original games, no matter how many hours I poured into Gears 3’s Horde and multiplayer. Your mileage may vary, and I’m sure the elder fans may stick to what they know (there are multiple control schemes available), but I ended up really liking using A to bounce between cover and clicking the left stick to sprint while having a bit more range of motion.
Unfortunately, most of the campaign’s boss fights aren’t very engaging, usually amounting to larger bullet sponge foes. Many other segments have a simple “kill all Locust” objective, which can be annoying as you try to hunt down a straggler hiding out of sight. That’s why I came to love a radar ping ability that would mark them with a red outline on my screen, one of several options to use as a sort of “ultimate” that goes on a hefty cooldown afterward.
I also had some pretty gnarly framerate drops at points throughout the campaign, even on Performance Mode on Xbox Series X, which is pretty disappointing. But other than that, the game is gorgeous in a bloody, gory, grungy, apocalyptic kind of way.
To say I was pleasantly surprised by how much I enjoyed E-Day’s campaign is putting it lightly. I didn’t have many expectations but I enjoyed my time with it, and although I don’t know how the most hardcore Gears purists will feel, I think it’s one of the better single-player campaign components I’ve played on Xbox in a while. But you will definitely want to bring some friends with you for the ride, too.
A copy of this game was provided by the publisher for review. Played on Xbox Series X|S.
