Microsoft opened its Xbox Showcase with a gameplay trailer for Gears of War: E-Day, about the day the Locust horde emerged from underground and attacked the human planet of Sera. It’s going to be an Xbox console exclusive.
The company made the announcement at the Xbox Showcase during Summer Game Fest week in Los Angeles. Gears of War: Reloaded came out in August 2025, but Gears of War 5, the last new mainline game, came out in 2019. Marcus Fenix gets into trouble toward with a Locust leader the end of the trailer, and his buddy Dominic Santiago comes to the rescue with a chainsaw bayonet.
The firefights on the day of the attack are the highlight of today’s trailer, with the game debuting on October 6. It will be an Xbox console exclusive, according to new Xbox CEO Asha Sharma. The company will show 25 games at its show today.
The fight takes place in one city, after Marcus and Dom suffer the lost of Carlos Santiago, Dom’s brother and Marcus’ best friend. It takes place 14 years before the first Gears game, and after a human-on-human war on Sera.
In the special E-Day showcase after the Xbox show, The Coalition developers said the game will have a lot more verticality, with the ability to jump and go up into buildings and shoot down on enemies. Other parts of the squad include Megs Carter and Lucas Reyes. There is some gallows humor and dry humor to break up the sadness of the end of the world.
Facial capture animations have been upgraded for the game. Marcus has more link in his eyelids than he did in his entire character in the original game. That enables much more expressive characters. It will have native 4K HDR resolution and 100 frames per second in multiplayer. There’s a cool grenade launcher where you can control the timing of an explosion.
With the Lancer chainsaw bayonet, there’s a satisfying moment when you finally cut through the enemy’s body. The theme revolves around the bond you form with your squad, and it comes back to the story of Dom and Marcus and their friendship. It has four-player co-op play with the two-player split-screen co-op on the couch with a console.
Open beta weekends will take place later this summer. The game is made in Unreal Engine 5. That enables much better graphics, with things like peach fuzz visible and hair on character’s faces. The first open beta starts on August 6. It’s possible the game will take advanced features of controllers like haptics. There are more polygons in the eyelashes than in the entire bodies of the characters in the first game. It also has better lighting.