Today's the day: Gears of War: E-Day, the most anticipated Xbox exclusive in years, has launched in early access for players who pre-ordered the Premium Edition of the game. Earlier, Jez Corden called it "gorgeous but undeniably messy" in our review-in-progress, looking forward to future content additions.

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Still, to celebrate this momentous occasion, Gears of War: E-Day's developers, The Coalition, have released an extensive blog post detailing their plans for updating the game's multiplayer content, balance changes, and more.

Here's what you can expect from Gears of War: E-Day's post-launch updates.

Gears of War: E-Day Season 1

First off, The Coalition states that Season 1 of Gears of War: E-Day's multiplayer content, titled Season 1: Emergence, will be running from today all the way up to December 1, 2026.

Season 1 will include all the game's launch maps, games, cosmetics, and three limited-time events called Halloween, 20 Years of Gears, and Thanksgibbing. Each event will last for two weeks and will feature a Versus Event mode, a Horde Siege Event mission, and exclusive, limited-time rewards.

Additionally, Season 1 will include:

• Ranked: Versus Ranked will officially launch one week after launch on October 13, giving players crucial time to get up-to-speed with all our maps, modes and sandbox before jumping into competitive.  
• Weekly Challenges: The weekly challenges Premium Edition owners receive on October 1 are the same challenges all players will receive at launch on October 6, weekly challenges will then refresh on October 13.
• Shop: Shop offers will rotate every Tuesday. Be sure to check every week for free featured gifts.
• Never Fight Alone Charity Bundle: 100% of net revenue of the Never Fight Alone Year 5 bundle, which includes an exclusive skin and weapon skin set, and the Never Fight Alone Legacy set, goes to our partner Crisis Text Line in our mission to prevent suicide.
• Promotional Items: Cosmetic items available exclusively through limited time partnerships will become available in the Barracks for Coins and Iron after the partnership exclusivity term lapses. 
• Gears of War: Reloaded Rewards: To celebrate the release of the original Gears of War 20 years ago, we’re offering exclusive rewards to commemorate players’ engagement with Gears of War: Reloaded. 
• Fire and Fenix Pose: Complete the “Prison Breakout” XBOX Achievement in Gears of War: Reloaded.
• Old Guard Medal & “Locked n’ Reloaded” Title: Complete the “Re-Up” XBOX Achievement in Gears of War: Reloaded.

Gears of War: E-Day Season 2 and beyond

Season 2: Legacy will begin at a later date after Season 1 and will feature content themed around the Gears of War franchise's 20th anniversary. The Coalition has also prepared a birthday gift for players to open on November 7, the day when the original Gears of War launched two decades ago.

Additionally, The Coalition has announced that Season 2 will include a Dead Serious Achievement. Any players who obtain it will be rewarded with exclusive cosmetics like a Medal, a Player Title, a Banner, an Emblem, an Icon, and a Legendary Character skin.

Lastly, Gears of War: E-Day has been confirmed to receive at least five post-launch seasons. The names of future seasons after Season 2 are:

• Season 3: Infiltration
• Season 4: Pendulum
• Season 5: Devotion

Gears of War: E-Day Multiplayer Balance changes

Moving on from seasonal content, The Coalition then lays out its plan for updating Gears of War: E-Day's gameplay based on feedback from the multiplayer betas.

Their first move is to change the Gnasher, Gears of War's iconic shotgun that is regarded as one of the best weapons to use in PvP and PvE content throughout the whole franchise.

The developers noticed that during Gears 2 to 5, firing the Gnasher from the hip has often resulted in some shots missing when they clearly should've hit the target. So, The Coalition has decided to finally fix that by introducing a new hybrid muzzle and camera-oriented shooting mechanic.

This means that when you fire the Gnasher, the game will check both the camera and muzzle shots and apply whichever angle is better suited for the shot, which should (hopefully) result in more accurate hits.

Next up, The Coalition states that iconic gameplay features from past Gears of War titles, like Meat Shields, Chainsaw Duels, select fan-favorite weapons, Private Lobbies, and Leaderboards, are being considered to be added to Gears of War: E-Day in post-launch updates or the next game.

Right now, the developers are focusing on making sure Gears of War: E-Day has the most stable launch experience possible.

Finally, The Coalition has laid out a series of patch notes for Gears of War: E-Day's early access launch, which include bug fixes, balance adjustments, Quality-of-life improvements, and more:

• Tuning:
  • Weapon Tuning: 
    • Adjusted Prototype Lancer damage to a value in-between Beta weekend 1 and 2
    • Reduced Lancer Mk1 damage
    • Reduced Vulcan damage
    • Increased Hammerburst damage 
    • Increased damage of the Gnasher while ADS at range
    • Improved Gnasher hipfire consistency
    • Reduced rate of fire for the Snub
    • Reduced the Gut-Puncher spare ammo amount
  • Movement & Cover Tuning: 
    • Improved strafe movement responsiveness
    • Adjustments to cover enter speed and distance of cover-enter cancel
    • Reduced Cover Slip speed
    • Reduced Slide distance
  • Horde Siege Tuning:
    • Adjustment of brightness and opacity of Energy icons
    • Adjusted the difficulty of Repair objectives 
    • Decreased the health threshold at which a Boomer, Flayer, or Grinder can be executed with a Prototype Lancer
    • Reduced Weapon Part Rewards for participation in invasions
    • Reduced Weapon Part Rewards for Weapon Part Stockpiles
    • Increased the difficulty of all Invasions
    • Increased the difficulty of Commander and Allfather difficulties
    • Adjusted the Medic’s stim duration
    • Increased equipment costs
    • Reduced the impact of some Squad Perks
    • Increased the Energy cost of Squad Perks
  • Versus Tuning: 
    • Reduced the wave respawn time
    • Reduced frequency of trading to feel more fair and consistent
    • Adjusted Scoring in Demolition 
    • Adjusted Scoring in Crucible
• Bug Fixes: 
  • Across PC, XBOX and handhelds, we made numerous improvements to stability, performance and optimization across applicable hardware configurations
  • On PC, we addressed a bug causing graphics settings to reset between launches
  • Made adjustments to prevent macro abuse of semi-automatic weapons
  • On PC, we addressed an issue causing missing VFX on explosions when set to Low quality settings
  • On “Legacy” control settings, fixed an issue causing an inconsistent Sprint release delay
  • On PC, fixed an issue causing additional input delay when playing on mouse and keyboard
  • On PC, fixed an issue causing mouse & keyboard lighting effects to not display properly
  • In Horde Siege, fixed an issue causing Tickers not to be properly flung when kicked
  • In Horde Siege, fixed an issue causing blast charges delivered during the Corpser Invasion Event to not register
  • Fixed an issue allowing players to shoot enemies not in front of their barrel when aiming down sights
  • Fixed an issue causing versus ranked or social players to get stuck at the “Waiting for Other Players” screen
  • Fixed an issue causing destructible assets to ‘stick’ to players
  • Fixed an issue where Marksman UAV visual effect might persist
  • Improved the reliability of starting objectives in Horde Siege
  • Improved the reliability of switching which squadmate you are spectating when cog tagged in Horde Siege
  • Fixed an issue where Tickers were immune to Gorehooks
  • Fixed an issue allowing more than four squad members in Versus
  • Fixed an issue where abandoned turrets could not be interacted with
  • Fixed visual issues with ranking up from Onyx 3
  • Fixed an issue where boss health bars and locators could scale incorrectly
  • Fixed multiple issues where specific enemies may not be able to path at certain objectives
  • Fixed multiple issues that would prevent objectives from completing in Horde Siege
  • Fixed multiple inconsistencies and interaction errors in the Horde Siege lobby and Barracks
  • Fixed multiple scoring inconsistencies and errors
  • Fixed multiple matchmaking errors and timeouts
  • Fixed an issue where Mortar strike vfx could appear without cause
  • Fixed an issue where TDM matches would end too early
• QoL & Feedback: 
  • On all platforms, we added an FOV slider 
  • On all platforms, we improved HDR calibration, made UI paper-white adjustment independent
  • On all platforms, we added the ability to disable Chromatic Aberration
  • On all platforms, we added the ability to disable Film Grain 
  • On PC, Max FPS can be set to 30, 60, 90, 120, 144, 240, or Unlimited 
  • On PC, setting Max FPS to “Unlimited” will not cap your framerate
  • On PC, multi frame generation is now optionally supported
  • On PC, we added a setting to allow players to enable or disable Lamp device support for mouse and keyboard lighting  
  • On XBOX, “The Lucky Ones Died on E-Day” achievement has been removed in order to support the upcoming Mythic Achievements feature. Players will still earn the “I AM A GEAR” Player Title upon completing all other achievements and the achievement remains on Steam
  • In multiplayer, adjusted Player XP to better align the rate of progression across Horde Siege and Versus
  • Made improvement to Backfill AI bot behavior 
• Advanced Shader Delivery (ASD): 
  • On PC, Advanced Shader Delivery (ASD) is a new feature that significantly reduces the time spent compiling shaders across different PC hardware configurations. It benefits Gears of War: E-Day and other supported games across the Xbox PC app
  • For launch, ASD will be supported on AMD hardware, with NVIDIA support coming later in October
  • Playing E-Day outside the Xbox PC app? You may still benefit from ASD if the Xbox PC app is installed on your Windows 11 PC, allowing the required shaders to be pre-installed
• LAUNCH KNOWN ISSUES:
  • Playing through the entire length of the game without reloading checkpoints or restarting may cause memory issues. Please reload a checkpoint if you get blocked at an encounter or objective
  • Performance Overlay in Benchmark mode does not include generated frames, and can report a lower than accurate FPS 
  • Game process may continue to run after closing, can be viewed and shut down from task manager 
  • New clients joining a lobby working through an existing save will receive all prior secondary objective and hardcase progress in the War Journal and all relevant Forge rewards 
  • On PC, offline play is unavailable until October 6

Are you ready for Gears of War: E-Day?

If you're a fan of Gears of War or third-person shooters, then you won't want to miss out on Gears of War: E-Day when it leaves early access and launches for the general public on October 6, 2026, for Xbox Series X|S and PC.

It's turning out to be one of the best games in the series just from the campaign alone, and judging from these long-term plans for its exciting multiplayer modes, Gears of War: E-Day is going to satiate your craving for video game violence for a long time.

Before heading off to buy a copy, I'd recommend upgrading your Xbox Series X's storage to fit Gears of War: E-Day, as the base game's 115GB install requirement is going to take a huge chunk out of it long before its post-launch updates arrive.

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