Gears of War turns 20 today. The original game launched on Xbox 360 on November 7, 2006, and The Coalition is marking the date inside Gears of War: E-Day with a gift for every player: RAAM, the Kryll-commanding Locust general who closed out the first game, is now free as a multiplayer character. You just log in to claim him. The studio has also confirmed that E-Day's second season, Legacy, starts on December 1 and brings back maps, modes and character looks from across the series.
RAAM is free for every E-Day player
The Coalition describes RAAM as a birthday present rather than a store item. There's no challenge to finish and no battle pass tier to reach. Anyone who owns Gears of War: E-Day gets him as soon as they sign in. For a lot of players RAAM is the Gears boss: he was the final fight of the 2006 campaign, the first big set piece many of them saw on Xbox 360, and the character that taught a generation to fear a swarm of Kryll in the dark. Putting him in E-Day's multiplayer roster at no cost is a neat nod to where the series started, and it costs players nothing to grab.
The studio framed the anniversary around its community more than its games. Its anniversary note talks about friendships made in multiplayer lobbies, campaigns played with parents and siblings, weekly Horde nights, and players who leaned on the series during hard times. It also thanks the original creators at Epic Games, the voice cast and the collaborators who built the universe before The Coalition took over.
A two-week anniversary event with two limited-time modes
The free character comes on top of a two-week anniversary event that started earlier this week. It adds limited-time modes to both sides of E-Day's multiplayer, along with new rewards to earn while it runs.
In Versus, the featured mode is Guardian. Each team has a leader, and only one leader makes it out alive, so the whole squad's job is to protect theirs and hunt down the other. Guardian has been a Gears staple for years and suits E-Day's refined 4v4 setup well, since one careless push can end a round.
On the co-op side, Horde Siege gets a mode called For the Queen. It turns off the supply cache, so squads can't top up mid-match and have to survive on the loadouts they bring in. Horde Siege is E-Day's bigger take on the classic wave-survival mode, with four classes (Assault, Marksman, Medic and Breacher), larger maps and multiple squads working on shared objectives and world bosses. Taking away the cache makes class choice and ammo discipline matter much more than usual.
Season 2: Legacy arrives December 1
The bigger news for regular players is the date for E-Day's next season. Season 2 is called Legacy and starts on December 1. The Coalition says it will continue the anniversary theme through maps, modes and multiplayer skins, bringing fan favourites from two decades of Gears into the new game.
The first skin the studio has shown is Solemn Memories Dom. It dresses Dominic Santiago in the suit he wears in the well-known photo of him and his wife Maria from Gears of War 2, an image that sits at the heart of one of the series' most remembered storylines. The Coalition says Legacy also lets it reimagine characters in ways the team has long wanted to, so expect more designs that point back at specific moments rather than simple recolours.
The studio has not yet listed which classic maps or modes are coming back. With Season 1, Emergence, running since E-Day's October launch, Legacy is the game's first full seasonal turnover, and the content list is likely to come closer to December 1.
Where E-Day stands
Gears of War: E-Day launched on October 6 on Xbox Series X|S and PC, including Steam. It's a prequel set fourteen years before the first game, following a younger Marcus Fenix and Dom through Emergence Day, when the Locust Horde first burst out of the ground. Built in Unreal Engine 5 by The Coalition with People Can Fly, it supports two-player split-screen and four-player online play across Campaign, Horde Siege and Versus. On Steam it sells for $69.99, and the Premium Edition at $99.99 adds a signature weapon pack, five seasonal customisation packs and 1,000 Iron.
For anyone who has been away from the game, today is the easiest time to come back: log in, collect RAAM, try Guardian and For the Queen while they're live, and get ready for Legacy on December 1. For everyone else it's a good moment to remember how much a chainsaw bayonet on a rifle has shaped action games over the last twenty years.
