Hello fellow gladiators!
Today I want to talk about my beta weekend in the Gears of War: E-Day experience: what I liked, what I didn’t, and what I strongly believe the developers must do if they want this game to be a success and not be forgotten a week post-launch.
Chapter 1: Prelude
I am not a Versus player. I never liked it. So, if you are looking for a review on the PvP aspect of the game, you can safely close the page and stop reading. This will be a PvE review only.
To understand where I’m coming from, we have to look back. In the previous game, Gears 5, we had a very weird Horde mode. I would like to elaborate before I criticize it. I own ALL the Gears of War games (1, 2, 3, Judgment, 4, 5, and now E-Day). I spent countless hours playing the Horde mode in Gears of War 4 on PC, making friends from all over the world. We teamed up and did multiple 50-wave runs on the highest difficulty on a daily basis.
I am not a random nobody who just appeared out of thin air to critique a game without having touched it. Yes, I know some of the older Gears games also had Horde, but I never paid for the online subscription; I only played the campaigns with my best friend via local split-screen on the Xbox 360. Best time ever!
For me, Gears of War 4 was the apex of what Horde should be, and I was expecting a similar, yet improved, edition in Gears 5… but nope. At first, the Gears 5 Horde mode was incredibly frustrating. The classes were tied to specific characters, and there could only be one of each in the game. Everybody wanted to play as JD because he was the top DD (Damage Dealer) with the Lancer GL. This persisted for a few months until they finally detached classes from characters, but by the time they fixed it, NOBODY from my core group of friends was playing anymore. That wasn’t the only issue—they removed the Scout role entirely, the Engineer was heavily nerfed, and overall, the mode felt like a step backward in every category.
Chapter 2: 7 years of (painful)silence
This was back in 2019, a very difficult year for me on personal level and on professional level.
Gears 5 was supposed to be my getaway from reality – a place to blow off steam with friends.
Instead, Gears 5 delivered a “meh” story that ended with a stupid dilemma. Halfway through the campaign, the protagonist switches from JD to Kait. I like Kait, but the finale forces you, the player, to choose which of your two friends dies: JD or Del. JD is the son of the legendary Marcus Fenix, and Del is the annoying “pseudo-engineer” meant to replace Baird (only way worse).
Why is this a problem? Because the story is supposed to continue. How do you start Gears 6? Two different story paths depending on who you saved? It was a baffling narrative choice from every angle.
But fear not, my friends! E-Day is a prequel. It takes place before the events of Gears of War 1, during Emergence Day – the day the Locust Horde emerged from underground and declared war on humanity! I can’t say much about the story yet since it hasn’t launched, but for now, I will focus on Horde… a mode I have poured thousands of hours into, which means I have a say.
Chapter 3: Horde…Siege?
I have pre-ordered every Gears game that exists on PC. Usually, the beta periods are purely focused on PvP, so I was really surprised when I saw people talking about a new “Horde Siege” mode. I assumed the game would feature standard Horde plus this new Siege mode.
This is a picture from ingame from the Siege Horde menu, it offers a learn to play mode (laughable but ok) and 3 modes under the umbrella of Horde Siege:
1)Blitz: Shorter length missions.
2)Siege: Standard length missions.
3)Horde: Survive relentless waves of enemies.
I tried them all. First of all, Blitz wasn’t nearly as short as they make it sound. If the team gets distracted by side missions or isn’t highly skilled, it can take a minimum of 30 minutes.
Second, Siege. I don’t know where this name comes from. All of these modes take place inside a city. When an army lays siege, they surround the city from the outside. When the enemy is already inside, slaughtering everything, the battle feels lost. I saw a few dead civilians on the ground, but no survivors. The city has fallen; there is no siege. “Resistance” would be a more appropriate name. Either way, this mode was also long – supposedly featuring two main objectives instead of Blitz’s one, but side missions can prolong the runtime to insane amounts.
Lastly, the only mode I failed to complete despite my best attempts: the “Horde” variant. I was super excited to try it. Unfortunately, in this new 12-player format, everything takes place on the same massive map with other squads running their own objectives. Sometimes they help, but often they are a detriment—stealing energy points or snatching up loot before you can get to it.
When my match started, we finished a side mission and headed to the main objective: survive 10 waves. Right off the bat, NO PLACE on the map is defensible! There are always 3 or 4 flanking routes. There is no “safe” ground where you can put your back to a wall.
Worse still, in every attempt I made, ALL of my squadmates left the defense zone to go do other tasks. We had no other active objectives – just survive the 10 waves. But nope! Those guys ran off everywhere else, leaving me entirely alone to defend an indefensible position. In past games, we dealt with early quitters, but in this one, people don’t even seem to understand they are in a cooperative Horde group.
As for the Horde itself? It has nothing in common with the classic versions. Where are the 50 waves? Where is the Fabricator so we can build fortifications? Where is the Engineer to deploy and maintain them? The enemies drop energy, but where is the Scout to pick it up?
It felt weird, wrong, and unenjoyable. The devs need to check the logs and see why entire squads are abandoning their primary duties to run off with other groups.
Chapter 4: Side missions.
Let’s circle back to a massive weak point: the side missions. When the map starts, you get a waypoint for the main objective. In most matches, the majority of the team heads that way. But if just one out of the four guys in your squad decides to roam off, they can trigger a side mission entirely by themselves. It doesn’t matter how far away the rest of the squad is – once triggered, a timer starts counting down, and the whole team has to sprint across the map to get there. If that one rogue player dies before you arrive, the mission fails before you even had a chance to help.
This is incredibly frustrating design. How do you fix this? Super easy:
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Spawn side missions ON THE WAY to the main objective! Don’t let a single player roam off to the opposite side of the map to trigger an event.
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Implement a squad vote. Require the team to vote on starting a side mission, and show everyone exactly what it is and how far away it is before it triggers.
Chapter 5: A letter of demand to the developers.
As someone who has played Gears of War for 20 years, I demand that E-Day includes the traditional Horde mode. Don’t replace Horde Siege – keep it, but add classic Horde alongside it.
If you want your game to retain players and not be forgotten a week after release, you have to listen to this. I know E-Day won’t have much breathing room with GTA VI coming up, but if Horde Siege is the only PvE option, the player base won’t even last until then. I don’t want to sound pedantic; this is coming from a place of love and respect. Horde Siege only has four classes in the beta, none of which are truly suited for traditional Horde defense (except maybe the Marksman).
Chapter 6: General impressions and problems about Horde Siege
I played nearly 11 hours this weekend and managed to finish all the challenges for the exclusive launch skins. Honestly, this didn’t feel like a beta. It felt like an early Alpha. With the launch window closing in and GTA 6 breathing down their necks, I don’t expect miracles. I am predicting a super problematic launch for both the online modes and the campaign. This was the case with Gears 4 and Gears 5—the early access periods were essentially paid beta tests. I expect E-Day to be no different.
Here are a few specific issues that bothered me:
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Crashes: In my first game, I tried using the ropes to rappel down. The game froze, kicked me to the main menu, and forced a restart.
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Spawn Logic: We would clear an area of Emergence Holes and kill all the enemies, only for Locusts with Gnasher shotguns to spawn out of thin air directly behind us. This happened in almost every game.
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Revive Glitches: During my second-to-last mission, I was getting downed for no reason. There were no enemies, yet the Omen sign appeared, I went down, and the logs showed I instantly revived myself (even though I wasn’t playing Medic). Eventually, I hit the maximum down states and became a dog tag. A player picked up my tag, but despite my pings to the nearest Fabricator, he never revived me. I had to play an entirely new match just to finish my last challenge.
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Server Latency: The ping was incredibly high. I don’t know if they only had one server located in the US, but there was massive delay between pulling the trigger and the weapon actually firing (or the enemy registering damage).
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Inconsistent Traversal: The vaulting and climbing mechanics are incredibly inconsistent. On some walls, you can climb up or jump down safely. On others, you can’t, and if you fall, you die instantly.
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Damage Scaling: I always play on the highest difficulty, but in this beta, even on the easiest mode, the enemies dealt massive damage and became bullet sponges against strong weapons.
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Mounted Weapons: The map features stationary turrets, but they are a mess. Sometimes they are loaded and ready. Sometimes they are damaged (and we have no Engineer to fix them). Sometimes they are completely empty with no option to reload them, even when the squad has massive amounts of energy.
Chapter 7: Steamdeck and linux support
One massive positive: I was able to play E-Day perfectly on my main PC running my Bazzite Linux dual-boot! All I did was enable compatibility and set it to my latest Proton-GE/Cachy, and it worked flawlessly. The game even launched and completed the benchmark on my Steam Deck! The Deck was running incredibly hot, so I closed it immediately after, but the fact that it runs at all is a huge win.
Verdict
This beta weekend was entertaining to an extent, but I really hope this isn’t the final vision for PvE. If Horde Siege is the only Horde mode we are getting, the game will be forgotten fast. I will most likely refund my pre-order and wait for a heavy sale, much like how Gears 5 GOTY is currently selling for €6.75. If The Coalition doesn’t want their game to suffer the same fate, they need to read feedback like this and act on it.
