Gears Of War: E-Day Review Round-Up

Gears Of War: E-Day Reviews Officially Rank It As The Best In Ten Years Published Oct 1, 2026, 9:14 AM EDT Sam Woods is TheGamer’s Senior Reporter. He’s been in games journalism since 2020 and has undertaken a variety of roles in that time. These have included roles such as SEO Editor, Managing Editor at DualShockers, and Global Head of Gaming, and he's also been seen on the BBC. He was promoted to the Senior Reporter position in 2025 following a series of high-quality reports and exclusives for TheGamer. Since 2020, Sam has written over 3,000 articles and specializes in telling the stories of the people behind the games. He’s interviewed the biggest game directors, some of the industry’s top talents, told the stories of how indie games came to be, and spoken to players about what really makes them tick. He’s also interviewed some of the world’s biggest musical artists to find out how the medium has inspired their work, and TV and Film actors about their roles in video game adaptations. He even hosted a PAX panel in 2021 and made a documentary in 2024 surrounding the creation of a Disney game. Alongside this, Sam focuses on breaking news. He got the scoop on Perfect Dark’s cancellation, provided context on some AI drama, and revealed that Lady Dimitrescu’s actress would love to step back into the character’s giant shoes. These articles have been picked up by the biggest gaming sites, including IGN, GameSpot, and PC Gamer. He also loves to dive into the numbers behind the games. Sam’s journey in games journalism has taken him all over the world. He’s covered Gamescom in Germany, Summer Game Fest in Los Angeles, and Tokyo Game Show in Japan, each on three occasions. He’s been learning Japanese since 2024 with the intention of identifying and translating Japanese-language news and bringing it to English-language audiences first, something he’s done countless times. Sam’s first review was 2020’s Battletoads reboot, and he’s since reviewed games in The Legend of Zelda, Super Mario, and Pokemon franchises. Sign in to your TheGamer account It's been seven years since the last mainline Gears of War game, and it's safe to say nothing has lived up to the original's hype. It has the highest Metacritic score in the series' history, sitting at 94, and that score has dropped with every release. Gears of War 2 scored a 93, Gears of War 3 a 91, and Gears of War 4 and, most recently, Gears 5 scored an 84. Despite laying off its story director, it was down to Gears of War: E-Day to course-correct and bring the series back to the heights it once reached. While only reviews for the game's campaign are currently live, it's off to a good start, sitting at an 89 on Metacritic and an 87 on OpenCritic. Critics Say Gears Of War: E-Day Is The Best In Years Gears of War: E-Day's campaign is off to a promising start. Critics were full of praise for its action even if its story was lacking in parts. Chris Scullion at VGC scored the game a 4/5, saying, "Gears of War has been a deeply important series for Xbox for more than two decades, and as the first entirely new entry in seven years it’s clearly a crucial new marquee release for the company at this tumultuous time. It’s a good job, then, that what E-Day lacks in emotion it more than makes up for in commotion." IGN's Ryan McCaffrey gave the game a 9/10 in his review in progress. He noted, "E-Day pulls off the tightrope act of giving us a heartfelt prequel with strong characters even when we know how it ends. On a more mechanical level, it also evolves the enemies, weapons, and combat you’d expect to deliver a Gears of War campaign that stands toe-to-toe with any of the others." In Polygon's unscored review, reviewer Ford James said, "Given the recent news that Halo is being absorbed by Activision, Gears of War: E-Day has an opportunity to step up and take the Xbox franchise crown from atop Master Chief's helmet. It's just about good enough to. Long live Marcus Fenix." Systems Released October 6, 2026 ESRB Mature 17+ / Intense Violence, Blood and Gore, Strong Language, In-Game Purchases, Users Interact Developer(s) The Coalition Publisher(s) Xbox Game Studios Engine Unreal Engine 5 Genre(s) Third-Person Shooter, Action, Adventure, Horror