Note: The following is a review for Gears of War: E-Day based on the campaign ONLY. We'll share our thoughts on multiplayer at a later date, as it wasn't made available during the pre-release period.

Gears of War: E-Day is the consequence of a studio that irrefutably gets what makes these games so special. The Coalition isn’t just delivering a world-class campaign, it’s raising the bar for Gears’ combat, pushing cinematic storytelling forward, and straight-up f***ing killing it.

I always knew pulling off Emergence Day was going to be a tall order. How do you turn the franchise’s most pivotal event into a campaign, especially with current-gen console hardware in its twilight years? And yet, this devastating prequel pulls none of its punches. It hardly misses a beat, and is relentless in its ambition to shock and awe.

My goal isn’t to blow smoke up something it doesn’t belong in. I've just spent the past week experiencing what could become my all-time favourite Gears of War campaign, and it’s making me feel quite emotional.

Personally, I’m not sure E-Day could be the blockbuster I believe it is without the influence of what came before it, and that’s what impressed me most. The Coalition has masterfully woven elements of what made the original trilogy iconic into their new game: the brotherhood between Marcus and Dom, the scarier tones of the original, and the heartbreaking toll of war.

Set fourteen years before the original 2006 release, long before General RAAM and lightmass bombs, E-Day follows a much younger Marcus Fenix - the iconic, grumbly Sergeant - as he mourns the loss of his best mate and comrade, Carlos. It’s been two years since his friend was killed in action against the UIR, with Fenix vowing to look out for his little brother, Dominic Santiago.

However, as Marcus and Dom share a few beers to honour the fallen and reflect on what’s important, their toast is interrupted by city-wide tremors. The ground opens beneath them, and nightmarish monsters are unleashed upon the streets of Kalona.

I’m fending off hundreds of starved Wretches with a Stillson pipe-wrench as ominous red beams streak out from cracks in the pavement, and my heart is pounding. Distant screams echo through alleys. Four-door sedans sink into the ground. Kalonites are being massacred every which way I look.

All the while, I’m thinking, the Locust are bloody terrifying.

That’s an incredible feat, really, considering I’ve spent the past eight games and twenty years curb-stomping hundreds of thousands of them. It’s crazy, but somehow The Coalition has actually made the Locust scary again.

E-Day’s opening act is a monumental triumph. A jaw-dropping spectacle that re-introduces the series’ formidable enemy faction in the most invigorating way.

Across five acts, sixteen chapters, and roughly 16 hours on Hardcore difficulty, I was consistently rendered speechless by some of the best-looking and most densely populated environments I’ve ever seen on Xbox.

Kalona City is a technical marvel. A picture-perfect postcard of innovation and industry through Gears’ beloved architectural lens, taking bits and pieces from Ilima, Aphyra, and Jacinto, building upon them to create a living, breathing city.

There’s a mixture of linear and open-zoned areas. The Coalition has tried this sort of open-zone stuff before in Gears 5, but this time, they’ve avoided the boring pitfalls of the past to deliver what feels like the biggest and most immersive setting in series history.

Better yet, as Kalona falls to the Locust invasion, E-Day’s spectacular environment shifts and twists beneath the rubble. The destruction isn’t just great to look at, it provides environmental variation that feeds into The Coalition’s best combat in decades.

Skyscrapers, giant golden statues, and historic buildings plummet into giant craters in the ground. Entire districts are engulfed in fire and ash, and there’s a particular police station location that still impresses me after revisiting it for a second time on the much harder Insane difficulty.

But for all of E-Day’s visual ambition, it’s the campaign taking place across these gorgeous locations that ultimately gives the game its weight. This is a story that tugs on the heartstrings laid out by previous Gears games. At times, it explores what makes Dom such a tragic hero, whilst challenging Marcus on what it takes to become a leader when times get tough.

Whilst E-Day emotionally batters you with every wince and crack across Dom’s face, it also introduces us to Kalona locals Lucas Reyes and Mags Carter. Both playable characters ground you in the everyday comings and goings of what life was like in the city before it became a mass grave.

I particularly enjoyed Reyes’ tour guide-worthy rambles about public transport links, and appreciated the self-appointed squad therapist, Mags, for supporting those around her like a true union representative.

Those details matter because E-Day spends a lot of time showing you exactly what’s being lost. “War doesn’t give a s**t about our good intentions,” Mags tells Reyes after a lot of good people die. And she’s right.

Beyond the main duo, it feels as though nobody is safe. The game constantly reinforces the catastrophic scale of the massacre, and I loved that about it. Kalona isn’t just some backdrop for a Gears campaign, it’s showing Emergence Day for the slaughter it’s known for, but it’s happening to regular people in real time.

The story is an exhausting struggle against the Locust, and I mean that as a genuine compliment. In the 72 hours since Emergence, Bravo Squad rarely finds a moment of respite. See: you’ll be blasting your way through a lot of grubs.

It’s probably a good thing then, that Gears of War: E-Day is the best the series has ever felt with a controller in my hand.

The biggest shift, of course, is The Coalition’s overhauled movement mechanics. Gears can now sprint around Kalona without suffering scoliosis, and mantle pretty much any reasonably sized obstacle in your path. It’s phenomenal.

That freedom opens up the arsenal of weapons, equipment, and abilities in ways that feel fresh again. Gnashers shred through Locust drones exactly as expected. Blowing the head off a grub with the Longshot is still as satisfying as the smell of freshly baked bread. Chainsawing your enemy in half is sensationally bloody.

It’s all familiar, but yet, a lot has changed for the better.

Hardcases can be found scattered throughout Kalona. Inside apartment buildings, at the top of public car parks, and even down in the depths with the Locust. A firm punch or kick, opens these up to unlock mod slots to attach to weapons and armour at your nearest supply cache.

These mods provide enough variety to keep weapons feeling fresh as you progress through the latter stages of the campaign. In the beginning, I was hot on the Prototype Lancer and Gnasher combo. A purist, if you will.

But as the world crumbled around me and the Locust started to overwhelm, I rocked the new Incinerator shotty, acid-burning the flesh off any grub in my path. I even equipped a mod to my Torque Bow that added a laser sight to my blindfire, allowing me to turn Boomers into explosive pincushions from behind a comfortable slab of concrete cover. There’s plenty to experiment with, and that extends into E-Day’s new armour mods and tactical gear.

At first, I scoffed at the concept of having Horde abilities in the campaign, like the Pulse Drone to spot enemies or the Sonic Disruptor to stun anything caught in its blast radius. But it works. By the end of Act 2, tactical gear feels wholly natural, whilst armour mods give you enough individuality to stand out from your co-op buddies in battle.

Gears of War: E-Day features the best combat in twenty years, so I can forgive the lack of chainsaw duels, frag tags, and meat shields. Would I like ‘em? Hell yeah! But getting stuck into the primary missions and open-zoned side objectives has been banging.

My favourite side mission was holding out inside an apartment building, sniping anything with too many teeth alongside an angry Gear I’d stumbled upon. It’s the kind of encounter that makes E-Day’s larger environments worthwhile to explore.

Something I think is worth mentioning is that when E-Day opens up into its larger levels, I can understand why some players might feel the pace slows down a notch. However, I don’t think it’s an issue at all.

Kalona is so immersive and fun to explore that I was happy to spend time wandering from the path. You’re the commander of your own ship. If you just want to stick to the main action, then hoof it to your primary objective and keep things relatively linear.

Speaking of the main action, E-Day has some pretty spectacular boss fights and situational encounters. I’m not about to spoil them here - all I will say is, there are a lot of Gears 1 and 2 references to be excited about. Oh, and who doesn’t love a train fight?

On Xbox Series X, if you’re content with 30FPS in Quality mode, then it’s an absolute looker. If you’d rather play at 60FPS, the game holds up solidly throughout, but as you’d expect with Performance mode, the image does get a little soft from time to time. Split-screen co-op works very well, although it’s limited to two players and 30FPS.

The game is future-proof. E-Day is going to be gorgeous for years to come, and that visual ambition does present its challenges on Xbox Series hardware, occasionally pushing it to its limits.

To wind things down with an outdated meme, Gears of War: E-Day is absolute cinema. Experiencing such unfathomable loss and devastation on this scale is captured to perfection by The Coalition. The performances from Marcus and Dom feel more human and believable than ever. I was holding back the tears alongside Dom, and once you experience Marcus’ climactic monologue at the end, you’ll feel the weight of the franchise even more.

Genuinely, the entire cast knocks it out of the park. It is great to spend time with Tai again and hang out with Commander Zee for the first time. What a dude.

The soundtrack perfectly matches the fear, anger, sadness, and world of Gears. It absolutely slaps. And that brings me back to where I started.