Gears of War E-Day: 87 From Critics, 78% on Steam

87 on Metacritic, 36 reviews, none negative: it is the series’ best score since Gears of War 3. On Steam, 78.5% of reviews are positive, ten points lower. Gears of War E-Day launches tomorrow, October 6, on Game Pass from day one, and early access has been open since October 1 for Premium Edition pre-orders.

The gap is not huge, but it does not come from where you would expect. To understand it, we read the 100 negative reviews Steam puts forward. Same exercise as for Silent Hill Townfall, where the press and players were not describing the same game.

87 from critics, with reservations about the story

On Metacritic, Gears of War E-Day scores 87 across 36 reviews: 33 positive, 3 mixed, 0 negative. Xbox players left 8.5 from only 4 ratings, a sample too thin to draw anything from. The PC version sits at 83.

Here is how the series ranks, as compiled by Insider Gaming:

• Gears of War: 94
• Gears of War 2: 93
• Gears of War 3: 91
• E-Day: 87 (at the time of writing)
• Gears of War 4: 84
• Gears 5: 84

Praise is plentiful, judging by the excerpts gathered by OpenCritic. TechRaptor gives it 9.5/10 and calls it « the best game in the series ». GamingBolt, 9/10, praises « some of the tightest combat ». Eurogamer sees an « active reload » (the series’ signature timed-reload mechanic): the game gives the formula a fresh push without starting from scratch.

The reservations mostly concern the story. GameSpot gives it 7/10: « For better or worse, E-Day is distinctly Gears, and I had a good time with it, even if the story is disappointing. » Wccftech, 7.4/10, writes that « the narrative is a lot less memorable, and the side content is forgettable. »

GRYOnline.pl, 8/10, points to structural flaws: « Unfortunately, it also suffers from issues with pacing and enemy AI, while pushing Marcus into the background. » Worth Playing, which gives no score, is the harshest: « If you only intend to play Gears of War: E-Day’s campaign, it has thus far been stunningly mediocre. »

On Steam, half of the negative reviews are about Mags Carter

On the Steam page for Gears of War E-Day, 3,000 reviews are counted: 2,356 positive, 644 negative, or 78.5%. Steam displays the rating « Mostly Positive », about ten points below the press.

One character draws a large share of the criticism. According to the game’s Wikipedia page, Mags Carter is a former Gear (soldier) who worked at the Kalona imulsion refinery. The campaign places her in Bravo squad, alongside Marcus Fenix and Dominic Santiago, fourteen years before the first Gears of War.

Our count is based on the 100 English-language negative reviews that Steam displays first, read on the morning of October 5. Of those 100 reviews, 51 target Carter’s role and what their authors call a « woke » or « girl boss » message. The underlying complaint: these players expected a story centered on Marcus and Dom. One of them puts it this way: « I wanted to play this game for Marcus and Dom. »

Some of these reviews are worded in insulting terms, notably about the character’s sexual orientation. They are not reproduced here. The most upvoted negative review exceeds 3,100 « helpful » votes.

Many of these same reviews nonetheless praise the game itself. « The gameplay is great, it looks pretty, » writes one of them despite the negative rating.

These reviews weigh on the rating, but the overall score remains at 78.5%. So this is not « review bombing » (a wave of coordinated negative reviews that drags a score down). Among French speakers, 17 of the 19 French-language reviews we read are positive. On substance, the expectation of a game centered on Marcus and Dom partly echoes GRYOnline.pl’s remark about Marcus being pushed into the background.

Gears of War E-Day on PC and in multiplayer: what is really missing

Metacritic shows 83 for the PC version and 87 for the Xbox Series X version. At The PC Enthusiast, Peter Paul points to performance: at the top setting, named « Ludicrous », even high-end graphics cards struggle.

Measurements at the « Ludicrous » setting:

• RTX 5070 Ti and RX 9070 XT: about 45 frames per second at 1440p, around 25 at 4K;
• RTX 5080: about 50 at 1440p, under 30 at 4K;
• RTX 5090: over 60 at 1440p, around 45 at native 4K.

Even the most powerful card on the market, whose price rose from $1,999 to $4,930, cannot hold 60 frames per second at native 4K.

The official recommendations therefore assume upscaling (DLSS, FSR or XeSS: techniques that render the image at a lower resolution, then scale it up). The CPU is also stressed in an unusual way for an Unreal Engine 5 game. In our count, 12 of the 100 negative reviews mention performance.

Another complaint, in 9 reviews out of 100: the series’ classic mechanics are gone. A French player (negative review, 44 « helpful » votes) lists them: no meat shield, no sticky grenades, no chainsaw duel, no private matches, no rankings, no Boltok pistol. Another French player, who recommends the game, wrote: « Excellent campaign, but it lacks private matches in multiplayer as well as private Horde. »

In my view, for a series whose competitive multiplayer lives on private matches and duels, these omissions weigh more with longtime fans than with a newcomer who arrived through Game Pass.

Gears of War E-Day costs €69.99 on Steam. It is included in Game Pass from October 6.