Gears of War: E-Day Beginner's Guide — 12 Things I Wish I Knew Before Playing

The Tutorial Teaches You Almost Nothing

I spent my first hour in Gears of War: E-Day dying to a Drome because I didn't understand the new movement system. The tutorial shows you how to aim and shoot. Cool. It doesn't tell you that you can slide into low cover now, or that vaulting over obstacles actually gives you a brief window of damage resistance.

This isn't Gears 5. The Coalition rebuilt everything from scratch in Unreal Engine 5, and the first thing you'll notice is how much more mobile you are. You can jump now. Actual jumping. If you played the original trilogy back on Xbox 360, this feels almost wrong at first. Marcus Fenix, jumping? But honestly after about 20 minutes it clicks and you realize how much the series needed this.

Don't skip the settings menu before you start. Turn off motion blur unless you enjoy feeling nauseous during roadie runs. Set your FOV to at least 90. If you're on Xbox Series X, pick the 4K/60FPS performance mode. The ray tracing looks gorgeous in still shots but 60 frames matters more when a Corpser is charging at you.

The Cover System Has Changed More Than You'd Think

Old Gears players have muscle memory for the snap-cover system. A button to stick to walls, pull back to peek, tap to roll. That basic loop is still there but The Coalition added layers. You can now slide from one cover piece to another without standing up. You can climb over taller barriers that previous games would treat as walls. And there's low-ground cover now , gutters, debris piles, craters , that you can prone behind.

One thing I noticed: the game punishes passive play way harder than Gears 4 or 5 ever did. If you sit behind one piece of cover for more than maybe 15 seconds, enemies start flanking aggressively. The AI isn't dumb anymore. Wretches will climb over your barrier. Dromes will charge straight through it. You have to keep moving, and the new slide mechanic is how the game wants you to do that.

A small thing that took me embarrassingly long to figure out: you can swap shoulders while aiming by clicking the left stick. Useful when you're peeking from the right side of a column but need to shoot left. The tutorial never mentions this.

Pick Your Co-op Setup Early

E-Day supports 4-player online co-op through the entire campaign. There's also 2-player split-screen, which is increasingly rare in 2026 and worth appreciating. If you're playing solo, DOM is your AI partner and he's... fine. Not brilliant, but he revives you reliably and doesn't steal kills.

But the game really shines in co-op. Each player controls a different character in the squad , Marcus, Dom, and two other COG soldiers whose names vary by chapter. You can drop in and out anytime. Progress saves for everyone, not just the host. If you have three friends who own the game, I'd honestly recommend waiting until you can all start together. The opening Emergence Day sequence hits different when you're all experiencing it fresh.

For split-screen: performance takes a visible hit on Series S. It's still playable, just don't expect locked 60FPS. On Series X it holds up fine.

Weapons That Actually Matter Early On

You start with the classic Lancer. But here's the thing: this is a prequel set 14 years before the original Gears. The chainsaw Lancer doesn't exist yet. The Lancer you get is the retro model with a bayonet. The chainsaw attachment shows up later in the story as part of the origin arc. It sounds minor but it changes how you approach close-range combat in the first few chapters.

The Gnasher shotgun is still your best friend indoors. Some things never change. If you're new to the series, learn the Gnasher early. It's a one-shot kill at close range against most standard Locust, and the hip-fire spread is tighter than it looks. Don't aim down sights with it unless they're at medium distance.

New weapons worth hunting for early: the Gut Puncher grenade launcher. It fires a projectile that embeds in enemies before detonating. Useful against Boomers who eat bullets for breakfast. The Incinerator is an Imulsion-powered shotgun that sets targets on fire. Limited ammo, but it deletes Wretch swarms.

Combat Rhythm: Push, Don't Camp

Gears combat has always been about the push-pull of advancing between cover pieces. E-Day adds verticality. Enemies come from rooftops, emerge from E-Holes at random positions, and sometimes drop from ceilings. You can't memorize spawn points because the E-Hole system is dynamic. In the gameplay demo shown by The Coalition, E-Holes appear at different locations each time you replay a section.

What this means practically: check your corners. Listen for the ground rumbling sound that signals an E-Hole opening nearby. If you hear it, move. Don't stand there trying to figure out where it is. The emergence itself does area damage if you're standing on top of it.

Active reloads are back and more important than ever. The timing window is tighter than Gears 5. A perfect active reload gives you a damage boost for that magazine. A failed reload jams your gun for what feels like an eternity while a Drome is running at your face. Practice the rhythm in the first area until you can hit it consistently. It's a rhythm game hidden inside a shooter and mastering it separates decent players from great ones.

Spend Your First Few Hours Exploring Kalona

The campaign takes place entirely in and around Kalona, a city that gets absolutely wrecked over the three in-game days the story spans. The opening section throws you into the chaos of Emergence Day , civilians running, buildings collapsing, Locust pouring out of the ground everywhere. It's overwhelming by design.

Don't rush to the next objective marker. Kalona has side areas with weapon caches, COG tags (this game's collectible), and environmental storytelling that fills in what life was like before the Locust attacked. The COG tags aren't just checkbox collectibles either , each one has a short audio log attached that builds out the world. Some of them are genuinely sad. Found one from a father recording a message for his kid about 2 hours before the attack. Stuff like that makes the collectible hunt feel less like busywork.

Also: the game doesn't auto-save collectibles you miss. If you pass a side area without checking it, that COG tag is gone until your next playthrough. There's no chapter select for collectible cleanup.

If You're Coming From Other Shooters

Gears is not Call of Duty. It's not Apex. Running into the open gets you killed in about two seconds even on Normal difficulty. The game wants you to think about sightlines, cover transitions, and target priority. That Drone with a Hammerburst on the balcony will shred you if you ignore him while fighting the Drome on ground level.

Take your time. The best Gears players look almost methodical when they play , advance, kill, advance, kill. The new movement tools (sliding, vaulting, jumping) make this flow faster but the fundamental rhythm hasn't changed much since 2006. Learn it and the game opens up.

One last thing: grenades can be planted on surfaces as proximity mines. Hold the grenade button instead of tapping it. Works on walls, floors, even ceilings. Tag a retreat path before engaging a big group and lead them into it. Satisfying every single time.