Gears of War: E-Day scores 87 on Metacritic and is already the best Gears in a decade

It's finally here. Gears of War: E-Day has launched on Xbox Series, PC and Xbox Game Pass, and critics have given it a warm welcome. As reported by Vandal, The Coalition's prequel holds a score of 87/100 on Metacritic based on 48 reviews. That figure makes it the highest-rated Gears in more than ten years. Only the first three games sit above it, the ones that turned Marcus Fenix and company into third-person shooter icons.

This matters more than it might seem. For a while now, the series has felt like it was doing its job without winning hearts, with solid entries that never quite recaptured the impact of the Xbox 360 era. E-Day outscoring everything The Coalition has made so far suggests the studio has finally cracked the formula. The timing is good for Xbox too: having one of its key franchises back on top, and available on Game Pass from day one, sends a strong signal.

What you need to know

• Metacritic score: 87/100 from 48 counted reviews.
• Platforms: Xbox Series, PC and Xbox Game Pass.
• Place in the series: it outscores Gears of War Ultimate Edition, Gears of War 4, Gears 5 and Gears of War: Judgment. Only the original trilogy ranks higher.
• Vandal hasn't given it a score because multiplayer wasn't available before launch, although it did review the campaign in depth.
• Campaign highlights: reworked movement, richer environments, new systems and much more variety, without losing the essence of the series.

How E-Day stacks up against the rest of the series

The comparison compiled by Vandal makes the leap clear. E-Day is The Coalition's highest-rated game, and it also beats Judgment, the spin-off developed by People Can Fly. Here's how things stand according to the source:

As for the content, Vandal's impression after playing the story mode is very positive. The Coalition has reworked how the character moves, filled the environments with more detail and life, added new systems and built a campaign that is considerably more varied than previous entries. And it has done so without forgetting what has always defined Gears: the weight of every fight, the cover system and that trademark brutality.

The multiplayer asterisk

There's one detail worth not overlooking. Vandal chose not to score the game because multiplayer wasn't available before launch. It's an honest call, because in Gears the online side has always been half the game, and for our community, probably more than half. That's why the 87 on Metacritic speaks, above all, to a great campaign. How things go in competitive matches is still unproven.

Our take

Here at Underworld Lordz we're celebrating, but keeping a cool head. A series so close to our hearts getting back to the level of its best years is great news, and launching on Game Pass from day one gives it a huge player base to start with. For content creators it's a clear opportunity: a varied, well-reviewed campaign offers weeks of material for guides, blind playthroughs, challenges and comparisons with the classics.

Still, for competitive players a good story isn't enough. The campaign is the showcase, but what keeps a Gears alive for years is its multiplayer: weapon balance, netcode, maps and how the scene is managed. The fact that many reviews focused on the campaign because online wasn't ready isn't cause for alarm, but it is cause for caution. The movement changes that work so well in story mode could be a blessing or a headache in competitive play, depending on how they affect the pace and the advanced techniques the community has spent years mastering.

Our stance is both optimistic and demanding. The Coalition has shown it understands the series, and now it has to prove it can also look after the people who play it seriously. If the online lives up to the campaign, E-Day could be the Gears that brings the franchise back into the competitive conversation. If it doesn't, it'll remain a great single-player adventure, which is no small thing, but it will feel like less than it could have been.

What do you think?

Have you already tried E-Day, or is it waiting for you on Game Pass? Are you convinced by critics placing it only behind the original trilogy, or would you rather see how the multiplayer holds up before getting excited? Let us know in the team chat or drop by our Discord: do you think E-Day can bring Gears back to the competitive scene?