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.
The movement layer underneath all of this is on the movement and cover page; the tools of the trade are in the weapons database, and who you're shooting at is in the enemies bestiary.
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.