Gears of War: E-Day Gameplay Updates

Check out some highlights of E-Day’s built from scratch gameplay. 

Gears of War: E-Day is a brand new game, built from scratch to feel like Gears but play like new. Every animation, asset, and feature has been crafted from the ground up and our gameplay sandbox is now unified across our modes. 
 
Gears of War defined the third-person cover shooter and we’ve refined the formula, focusing on the core Gears pillars: movement, cover, weapons and enemies. Combined with some new mechanics that expand our gameplay sandbox, E-Day delivers that iconic Gears intensity with more fluidity and choice than we’ve ever had before. 

Cover is Life

Our battlefields are defined by their cover layout. Whether playing in Campaign, Horde or Versus, your ability to read the combat space, moving from cover-to-cover is at the core of Gears’ gameplay.  

We’ve completely rebuilt our cover systems and E-Day supports a greater variety of cover types, heights and actions than ever before. 

For example, our new “low ground” cover will have you hunkering behind lower walls and debris, or even dropping to prone after the top half of your protection is ripped away by gunfire. Your Gear will lay down, back-to-wall in these situations with slower movement and a slightly more exposed profile. While these cover opportunities are not always ideal, grabbing protection on a low ledge or wall can be the difference between life and death. 

Move Like a Gear 

Movement is where you’ll see the most change in E-Day’s gameplay. We wanted to keep that heavy feeling of being an armored-up Gear, slamming into cover, while accentuating that sense of weight, momentum and fluidity. Moving through the world should feel natural, supporting the wide variety of experiences you’ll find in the game. From tight Versus battles, to wide-ranging flanks and arenas in Horde Siege, to exploring the city of Kalona in Campaign. 

Like all Gears games, E-Day still asks you to think about your approach to a fight. A wrong move can still get you caught in the open but now, you have more mobility to execute your plan, or to scramble and seek safety when things go wrong.  

• Sprinting. Sprint has control and camera changes for longer runs and more battlefield awareness, combining more fluidly with other movement mechanics. Each sprint starts with a nod to Roadie Run as your Gear hunches and plants their first few steps, keeping that slightly lower profile while doing quick cover-to-cover moves.  
• Slide. From sprint, you can now trigger a slide. This versatile move can be used to get low as you approach a target, slip quickly under a vehicle or gap, or slide into cover from a distance. You can also shoot during a slide so it can be used to slide past a corner to pull off a clutch Gnasher gib. You can’t spam it, so picking the right time to slide is critical (unless you’re just going for style points). 
• Jump and Climb. Jump brings more verticality and traversal options to combat than we’ve ever had. Jumping towards a wall, ledge or vehicle, within arm’s reach allows you to grab the ledge and haul yourself up. Some maps use gaps to offer access to flanking routes- assuming you time your jump right. Also, for the first time in Gears you can mantle and climb without entering cover first – just face the object and press the button, whether you’re in or out of cover. 
• Cover Gaps. With many more shapes and styles of cover objects, we’ve also introduced cover gaps. We have low gaps like the space under a truck or a hole in the wall that you can pass through by ducking or sliding under. Or you can post up on the edge and lean out low at enemies on the other side. You can also now aim and shoot through narrow gaps on a certain cover, allowing you to shoot through openings like car windows. 

Our core movement has been rebuilt to target a smoother, more fluid and more intentional style than recent Gears titles.

• Commitment: Cover entry can only be cancelled within 1.5 meters of the cover object, unlike previous Gears titles where it could be activated at any point within the enter action. 
  • What this means: Players must travel further towards the cover before the cancel can be done, putting them in a more predictable trajectory and a more ‘readable’ cancel position. Chaining cover cancels must be paced a little slower and should be used more deliberately and tactically. No more hyper-bouncing. This also means if another player is on the opposite side of cover, they must travel into their Gnasher range before cancelling.  
• Momentum: Every action and reaction has a consistent motion transfer to it. No more stopping immediately and changing direction instantaneously. 
  • What this means: There is a tangible, weight to movement that is easier to follow. While in a cover cancel, a player can slow down very quickly, but it takes a short time to shift direction completely, leaving them vulnerable to well-timed counters. 
• Speed: Entering cover remains one of the fastest movement actions a player can take. But overall speed across the sandbox is more balanced. Leaving cover enter and cancel as less of an outlier. 
  • What this means: Sprinting, evading, and especially sliding are all reasonable alternatives with their own pros and cons. Bouncing between cover isn’t the only way to remain at speed anymore. 
• Fidelity: Slow is smooth, smooth is fast. Every action is more readable and connects to one another much more consistently and fluidly. Movement has purpose and is reflected in the animations.
  • What this means: Visually, each player’s movement and actions can be tracked better. Meaning it’s easier to learn and parse where the opposing player’s weapon is pointing, how long it will take them to fire after an action is committed to, how many steps it will take them to get to cover, or how far they will slide. This creates opportunities for counterplay that have been more difficult to read in previous games. 

There’s so much more to talk about when it comes to all of the new touches and additions in E-Day’s gameplay. When you get your hands on it you will feel a difference to previous games and whether you are a returning Gears fan, or new to the franchise, we’ve got a great set of onboarding options for you to learn and practice our new movement features.

Guns, Guns, Guns… 

Every weapon in Gears of War: E-Day, whether it’s a brand-new entry or a returning favorite, has been thoughtfully designed, considering what made previous Gears guns so great and how they can fit into our new foundation.  

We’ve made some meaningful adjustments to refine E-Day’s gunplay: 

• All projectiles now have simulated ballistics and travel time. The visuals of the tracers and hit effects are true to the simulation for the first time in the franchise. This also creates more interesting gameplay scenarios, where shooting outside of a weapon’s range requires leading your target. 
• You can now shoulder swap while aiming, giving you control of where your character is positioned while aiming down sights. 
• Small adjustments create more interesting tactical scenarios. For example, first-person scopes have sway to add some additional realism and aiming challenge for snipers, and recoil on some automatic weapons is tuned to reward players for firing in short burst. 

Many returning favorites also have some notable adjustments:

• We’ve added a new round-by-round active reload system on the Gnasher and Breechshot. This gives these weapons versatility and tactical depth by allowing the player to quickly load a round or two to finish off a kill without going through the full reload cycle. To balance against this new ability to hot-reload, the Gnasher has its ammo capacity reduced from the previous 8 shells down to 6. 
• The Prototype Lancer has a higher rate of fire and deeper magazine than recent Lancers, making it a great all round rifle. Track your target and lay into them. 
• Our Hammerburst is inspired by the original Gears of War version, with an accurate 6 round burst and a perfect active reload effect that increases your rate-of-fire. 
• The Breechshot returns with a 1-shot headshot kill in PVP (and some brutal axe-based executions!)
• Lancer MK1 (or ‘Retro’) resumes its role from Gears 3. Deadly in-close range but can be used effectively at mid-to-long ranges if the shooter can tame its strong recoil.  
• The Snub is tuned to be closer to early Gears games. It fires as fast as you can pull the trigger and is very quick to draw and stow, making it a deadly ‘clean-up’ weapon. 
• Smoke Grenades are better than ever, using volumetric smoke to realistically saturate the environment, and effectively block Player and AI enemy sightlines. This allows for a quick reposition or a deadly charge into the fray! 
• You’ll notice that Heavy Weapons have been changed a bit as well. Although you’ll be slowed down, most movement can now be done while carrying a Heavy. You can also rip Heavy Weapons right off turret bases (a great way to acquire them in Horde Siege). Also of note, the Heavy Boomshot in E-Day is the Locust’s Prototype Boomshot and shows up as a Heavy Weapon. This allows us to give the Boomshot a hefty kick while keeping it balanced. 

And of course, we have some surprising new weapons, and an entire Weapon Mod system in Horde Siege and Campaign for you to tweak weapons to your personal playstyle!

Enemies

By going back to the Locust, we got to rebuild some of our most iconic enemies. Our Developer Direct outlined our approach to redesigning the appearance of core units like the Wretches, Boomers and Drones. Of course, the Locust army is bigger than just those three, and you’ll fight menacing creatures from the hollows, and face towering bosses in Campaign and Horde. 

Gears combat encounter variety centers around enemies. Each enemy type challenges you differently, pinning you in cover, flushing you from your position or even mirroring COG tactics. 

As we rebuilt Locust units from past games, we took care to build on their core identity in gameplay, while adding new behaviors so fighting them feels like a fresh challenge. Here are just a few examples:

• Armored Wretches can catch you in a scream, disorienting you and limiting your actions.  
• Drones come in many varieties, with elite units using tougher tactics and loadouts, combining together to create formidable enemy squads. 
• Seeders return, not just as anti-air Nemacyst launchers, but as mini-bosses you need to attack and defeat. Each one is a tactical challenge, as you need to get close and taunt them out of their holes so that they flip over and expose their weak, fleshy head. 
• Boomers are tougher (and bigger) than ever, soaking up damage and dominating a space, but now at low health they can be executed with a Lancer chainsaw. So, a well-timed team attack can shortcut a longer fight. 
• Reavers can act as troop transport, deploying a squad of Drones into action, but if they choose to stay around, they become terrifying walking tanks. They can leap and cling to a high wall, raining munitions from above and flipping the battlefield on its head.  

There are many more enemies as well, including some new creatures from the Hollow, enslaved by the Locust and unleashed on the surface of Sera. 

The mix of enemy combinations, layout, weapon choice and player skill is what makes Gears feel like Gears. Our enemies play great in singleplayer, asking you to use strategy and quick thinking, but they also create unique challenges and opportunities in co-op where your squad’s approach to the combat puzzle can play out in so many ways.

Good Omens

In and around our four pillars, so many other small changes and additions have gone into our gameplay systems.  

The center screen Omen is back, and every hit now sprays blood off the Omen in the direction of the incoming damage. 

We also included a “Downs Counter” when you go DBNO (Down But Not Out), so you can track how many downs you have left until a full omen will take you straight to death. This is especially useful in Horde Siege, where managing your downs as a squad becomes pretty important. 

The iconic active reload bar is defaulted to the center screen, just below the reticle. In our testing, we found that this position helps players use this important mechanic more regularly. Of course, if you are a longtime Gears player and want your active reload bar in the upper-right hand corner of your screen, there’s a setting for that. 

Speaking of settings, we have more options to tweak your difficulty and gameplay than ever before. In Campaign, changing some of these settings will change your current difficulty tier to match, but it’s up to you if you want to customize the way the game plays to your specific preferences.  

Wrap Up

We know we sound like a broken record, but we really did build everything in E-Day from scratch, and there’s just way too much to cover it all here. Hopefully this post provided some interesting new details about our gameplay and how we approached building on the legacy of Gears to create a brand-new game. 

Pre-Order now to get Early Access to the Open Beta on August 6th and be among the first to get your hands on Gears of War: E-Day multiplayer.