Is Gears of War: E-Day Worth It? Critics vs Players

Evidence-based review · scores read on 9 October 2026

Yes, for most people who like cover shooters: Gears of War: E-Day holds a Top Critic Average of 87 on OpenCritic and 74.9% positive reviews on Steam. The gap between critics and players is mostly about a long campaign and PC crashes, not about the shooting, and our score is 8.3 out of 10 (Great).

This is not a hands-on review. AFK Journal has not played the game: the verdict is built from OpenCritic, Metacritic and Steam data read on 9 October 2026, full reviews from IGN, PC Gamer, VGC, The Verge and GameSpot, and our own count of the 600 most recent English-language Steam reviews. The formula is shown in full further down.

What score did Gears of War: E-Day get?

The Coalition launched E-Day worldwide on 6 October on Xbox Series X|S, PC through the Xbox app and Steam, and Game Pass, after five days of early access for Premium Edition owners. The critic average has barely moved since the embargo lifted: when we covered the first reviews on 1 October, it stood at 87.21 from 15 top critics.

What critics agree on

The shooting is the best the series has had

PC Gamer sums it up as "Gears has never felt better to play". VGC calls the gunplay deeply satisfying, which matters because it is most of what you do, and IGN singles out a weapon roster where every gun has a clear purpose, now with collectible weapon mods found in hidden cases.

Marcus can finally jump

Both PC Gamer and VGC flag the new free jump as the one real mechanical change: it lets you climb onto cover and leap gaps, which VGC says adds verticality to fights. PC Gamer treats it as a running joke about the series' famously grounded hero, but credits it as a genuine step forward.

Horde Siege is the most ambitious mode

PC Gamer, which reviewed the multiplayer as well as the campaign, calls Horde Siege a fun, smart evolution: the classic wave defence now spreads across the open city, with optional objectives popping up between waves. IGN's review only covered the campaign, but its reviewer says the Horde Siege sessions in the public beta were a highlight. PC Gamer is more measured on the 4v4 Versus modes, calling them great for jumping straight in but a less qualified success overall.

The setting and the atmosphere land

IGN describes Kalona, the city where much of the campaign takes place, as a set of large but dense battle spaces and an improvement on the emptier open areas of recent entries. The Verge calls E-Day one of the most confident blockbusters around, noting that the pitch-black Locust tunnels push it towards horror without losing the series' strangely cheerful brutality. PC Gamer agrees the early horror beats can work, though it finds others clumsy.

The Verge also frames the launch itself: The Coalition was hit by at least one round of layoffs before release, and staff fear more are coming. That does not change what is on the disc, but it is worth knowing if you are buying in for long-term multiplayer support.

Where critics split

The story is the clearest dividing line. IGN praises a heartfelt prequel with strong characters, even though players know how it ends. VGC calls the plot the weakest part of the game, with a first half spent asking what the Locust are and a second half full of action-film clichés. The Verge lands in between: the story is deliberately straightforward, giving just enough detail to care about the characters without slowing the action.

The second split is length and ambition. PC Gamer calls the 20-plus-hour campaign far too long for how one-note it is and describes the game as creatively stagnant. VGC points to a bridge set piece that comes back three times. GameSpot's 7/10 review is headlined with the charge that the campaign is buried in the past. At the other end, several outlets listed on OpenCritic score it 9/10.

What do Steam players say about Gears of War: E-Day?

Steam rates E-Day Mostly Positive: 4,810 of 6,419 reviews were positive on 9 October, or 74.9%. The most recent reviews are a touch cooler, with 435 of the latest 600 English-language reviews (posted between 8 and 9 October) positive, or 72.5%. Players on r/GearsOfWar noted on 5 October that around 75% already made it the best-rated Gears game on Steam, in a thread with 167 upvotes and nearly 300 comments.

To see what drives the negative reviews, we counted keyword mentions in those 600 recent reviews. It is a rough tool (one review can mention several things), but the pattern is clear: crashes are the top complaint, cited in 44 of the 165 negative reviews, ahead of performance and frame rate. The campaign and story come up at the same rate in positive and negative reviews, so it divides players much as it divides critics. Horde and multiplayer are mentioned in more than a fifth of positive reviews.

Steam also screens out review bombs it judges off-topic from its score, so the 74.9% reflects reviews about the game itself. The median reviewer in our sample had played around 15 hours when posting.

Performance, platforms and price

E-Day is on Xbox Series X|S and PC, and included in Game Pass from day one; Xbox lists the Standard Edition at $69.99 and the Premium Edition at $99.99. On PC the game requires a ray-tracing-capable graphics card and 115 GB on an SSD. Our editions and Game Pass guide breaks down what each tier includes, and the crossplay and cross-progression guide covers playing across Xbox and PC.

Critics rarely flag technical problems: IGN mentions infrequent but noticeable frame-rate hitches. On Steam, crashes are the leading complaint among negative reviews, and The Coalition had not posted a patch on Steam since launch as of 9 October. Before launch, its open beta notes warned that hard drives are not supported and can cause stuttering and crashes, so an SSD is not optional.

How we got to 8.3

Every AFK Journal review uses the same public formula: 70% critics (the OpenCritic Top Critic Average divided by 10) and 30% players (the Steam positive share divided by 10, using all reviews for the first 60 days). A correction of up to half a point is allowed only for problems documented by at least two independent sources.

We considered a deduction for the PC crashes, but the evidence so far comes from Steam reviews rather than from two independent outlets documenting a widespread fault, so the score stands without one. We will reread the numbers after the first stability patch and again after 30 days.

Should you buy Gears of War: E-Day?

• Buy it if you want classic cover shooting at its sharpest and plan to stick around for Horde Siege and Versus.
• Play it on Game Pass if you are curious but unsure: the price is the third most common complaint in negative Steam reviews.
• Wait for a patch if you play on an older PC: crashes lead the recent negative Steam reviews and no fix had been posted by 9 October.
• Skip it if you want a shooter that reinvents itself or a tight, story-led campaign: that is where PC Gamer, VGC and GameSpot are least convinced.

To see how E-Day compares with the rest of the series, read every Gears of War game ranked by critics and players. If you want another 2026 third-person action game with strong critic scores, our Control Resonant review uses the same method. Everything else we have published on the game lives on the Gears of War: E-Day hub.