As promised, Gears of War: E-Day developer The Coalition followed up the Xbox Games Showcase with a presentation entirely dedicated to the upcoming third-person shooter. The nearly 28-minute-long Direct expanded on the gameplay demo we saw at the Showcase, revealing more details about the core design philosophy, as well as the modes we can expect at launch.
That last bit is important because, unlike Halo: Campaign Evolved, E-Day will include Versus, as well as Horde Mode – even if it feels like the two have barely been brought up since the game was initially unveiled.
Given how quiet the studio has been about the two modes so far, it’s not that surprising that their segments in the show were quite brief. Starting with Horde, The Coalition called it “a dynamic evolution”, and confirmed it will now support 12 players, and three squads per session.
This iteration is called Horde Siege, and it has all three squads fighting against the Locust Horde in maps based on locations from the city of Kalona, where the main game takes place. And… that’s about it, though The Coalition promised to share more details soon.
Versus PvP also returns in E-Day, and it’s back to the classic 4v4 structure. You can look forward to new maps, likewise based around the city of Kalona. The new maps are built so that players can make use of the new traversal tech (jumping, sliding etc.), but they remain symmetrical.
In fact, there’s also going to be an open beta where you can go hands-on with multiplayer. Pre-ordering lets you play it early, but, similar to Call of Duty and other multiplayer games, you can wait and play it a few days later without the need for a pre-order. The beta also appears to include Horde content, judging by the wording in the Direct
Most of the E-Day Direct focused on the co-op campaign, revealing the foundational tech behind much of what was shown, and a lot of the gameplay updates that set the prequel apart from every other game in the series (hello, jump button!).
As long as it was, however, it felt like the developer rushed through the Horde, and Versus segments, which is a little surprising for a game coming out early October. We’ll have to wait until the beta in August for more to be revealed.
Gears of War: E-Day – now an Xbox console exclusive – will arrive 6th October on PC, and Xbox Series X/S.