Emergence Day is here for everyone. Gears of War: E-Day, The Coalition's prequel to the 2006 original, unlocks worldwide today, October 6, at 8:00 a.m. PT / 15:00 UTC on Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC and Steam. Premium Edition owners have been playing since October 1. Today the standard edition, Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass players all get in at the same moment.
When Gears of War: E-Day unlocks where you are
Xbox is using one global unlock instead of a midnight rollout by region, so the start time depends on where you live. The 15:00 UTC launch works out as follows:
- Los Angeles (PT): 8:00 a.m., Tuesday, October 6
- New York (ET): 11:00 a.m., Tuesday, October 6
- London (BST): 4:00 p.m., Tuesday, October 6
- Paris / Berlin (CEST): 5:00 p.m., Tuesday, October 6
- Tokyo (JST): midnight, Wednesday, October 7
- Sydney (AEDT): 2:00 a.m., Wednesday, October 7
Pre-install opened on September 29, so most players who planned ahead should already have the files on their drive. If you haven't downloaded it yet, start now. Earlier Xbox guidance put the PC install at around 115 GB on an SSD, and the PC version requires hardware ray tracing.
Where you can play it
E-Day launches on Xbox Series X|S, the Xbox PC app and Steam on the same day. It supports Xbox Play Anywhere, so one digital purchase covers console and PC, with shared progress and saves between them. Game Pass Ultimate members can also stream it through Xbox Cloud Gaming, and it is available on GeForce NOW for anyone who would rather not download it at all.
The standard edition costs $69.99. Pre-order bonuses end shortly before launch: orders placed before 7:59 a.m. PT today still get the Exfil Dom character skin and the Exfil weapon skin set, plus an Xbox gift card at participating retailers. Xbox has also confirmed that E-Day is part of its Disc to Digital program, so a disc copy can be registered as a digital license.
One thing to check before you buy: online co-op, Horde Siege, Versus and the other online modes need a Game Pass tier that includes online multiplayer. The campaign and local split-screen do not.
The campaign: fourteen years before Gears of War
E-Day goes back to the start of the series' timeline. It is set fourteen years before the first game, on the day the Locust Horde first breaks through the ground on Sera. Marcus Fenix and Dominic Santiago are the leads, years before the hardened soldiers of the original trilogy. The Coalition has pitched it as a darker, grittier entry that brings back the dread of the early games. Familiar enemies have been redesigned, and new creatures and villains have been added.
The campaign supports two-player split-screen on one console, and up to four players can play together online. Movement has also been modernised. Cover-based shooting is still the core, but you can now jump, vault and slide, which opens up flanking routes and vertical fights that older Gears levels rarely allowed.
Horde Siege and Versus
Multiplayer is split into two pillars. Horde Siege reworks the series' wave-survival co-op mode for bigger maps and more players. You pick one of four classes (Assault, Marksman, Medic or Breacher) and drop in as a four-player squad. Several squads can share the same map, working on common objectives and fighting world bosses together, and survival earns rewards, customisation and loadout upgrades that carry into the next match.
Versus brings back 4v4 PvP on all-new maps, split into Ranked and Social playlists for competitive and casual players. The new movement options apply here too, which should change how familiar modes play out. The Coalition has already set out a Season 1 plan for post-launch content, so treat today's mode list as a starting point rather than the full picture.
Built on Unreal Engine 5
E-Day is the first Gears built from the ground up in Unreal Engine 5. Xbox is promising 4K resolution at up to 60fps across both the campaign and multiplayer on console. PC players get the usual upscaler options and a built-in benchmark, which is worth running before you settle on settings.
More launch-day releases
The game isn't the only thing out today. Adam Lastiwka's original soundtrack is released alongside it on streaming services. The licensed hardware continues over the next few weeks: a Gears controller dock follows on October 9, and 8BitDo's E-Day Retro 87 keyboard and Retro R8 mouse for PC are targeted for October 30.
Big launches rarely go perfectly smoothly at the unlock time. If you get connection or matchmaking errors this afternoon, The Coalition's live service status is at status.gearsofwar.com, and problems can be reported through GearsofWar.com/support.
