The Coalition describes E-Day's design goal as the "gameplay version of the announce trailer" — the weight and brutality of classic Gears, rebuilt around modern expectations. Combat is a puzzle: unique enemy combinations, tactical weapon choice, and reading space.
Cover & Gunplay
- Cover is the foundation: smoother transitions, more heights and shapes, and a new low-ground cover type that lets a Gear drop prone behind low walls and debris.
- Simulated ballistics: every projectile has travel time — long sightlines behave like real shooting, not hit-scan.
- Active Reload returns, rewarding well-timed reloads; previews also describe shell-by-shell reloading on some weapons for tension in desperate moments.
- Weapon feel is deliberately heavy: IGN's campaign preview called it possibly "one of the heaviest combats in the saga" — aiming alone doesn't win fights; positioning does.
The New Movement in Combat
- Sprint feeds into a slide — under obstacles, around corners, into cover.
- A dedicated jump/vault (Y by default) opens vertical play: rooftops, collapsed floors, high flanks.
- Full breakdown in /gameplay/movement-cover.html — including the wall-bounce balance debate.
Smarter, Scarier Locust AI
Campaign design director Raul Figueroa's stated goal: enemies should feel "dangerous, smart, and threatening."
- Locust climb vehicles to outflank entrenched players
- Grenadiers drop smoke and walk through it to close distance
- Every encounter is a first for the squad — the tension scales from the first Wretch sighting to armored Brumaks
- Higher difficulties are framed "as a puzzle" — environment use over reflexes
Destruction & E-Holes
- Emergence Holes return as a dynamic mechanic — some can be collapsed with explosives.
- Sinkholes swallow vehicles and buildings; micro-destruction gradually erodes the cover you're hiding behind.
- The city falls apart as the three-day campaign progresses — arenas you fought through on day one are rubble by day three.
The Signature Set-Pieces
Searcy describes the campaign's peak encounters as "almost action-movie sequences — you throw yourself off a balcony, land next to your buddy and revive him, scramble through cover, slide under a truck, and hit safety on the other side."
Questions
Does E-Day have Active Reload?
Yes — the timing-based Active Reload returns, and previews note shell-by-shell reloading on certain weapons.
Is there jumping in Gears of War: E-Day?
Yes — a series first. Jump and mantle are mapped to Y by default, opening vertical combat and map design.
How hard is the combat?
Previews describe it as heavier and more demanding than recent entries — flanking AI punishes static cover play, and difficulty tiers scale like puzzles rather than aim checks.