Now Playing: Gears of War: E-Day

The opening Act of the Gears of War: E-Day Campaign is an absolute masterclass in game design. From visuals, animations and audio, to pacing, player onboarding and encounter design. It was so damn good, and raised the bar so high, it actually made me worried that the subsequent Acts wouldn’t be able to reach the same level of quality. But I shouldn’t have worried, because E-Day remains consistently incredible from beginning to end, with one – just one! – notable exception that I’ll touch upon later.

I’ve already lavished the first Act with praise in my First Impressions post, so I won’t repeat that praise here, but I will just touch upon something that I didn’t delve deeply enough into during that post – Act 1 made the Locust scary in a way I suspect they were always intended to be, but previous games never quite achieved.

I had no doubts that E-Day would present the Locust as a formidable force that could challenge the player. What I wasn’t expecting was E-Day to represent the true horror and unrelenting brutality of the Locust in a way that we’ve never really experienced before. Where even a single grub charging at you can elicit a reaction of panic – Act 1 is a horror experience as much as it is an action one.

But if every Act was so relentless, so fast paced, so tense and so adrenaline pumping, E-day would have been exhausting. That’s why Act 2 was such a clever change of pace. Because Act 2 sees the introduction of the ‘hub’ maps that are incorporated into E-Day’s campaign. These open areas give you a chance to catch your breath, to enjoy a little quiet time between the next life-or-death battle for survival.

They give you a chance to reflect on the sheer scale of the destruction being wrought upon the city of Kalona. And every time you return to one of these hub maps within the campaign, you see more and more of the city has been lost. Within a matter of days, the city you saw intact and thriving at the opening of Act 1 is almost entirely unrecognisable.

Despite knowing how this story will go (it is a prequel, after all) the game still successfully builds a sense of false hope not just for the characters, but for the player too. Act 2 is all about giving you and Bravo Squad a belief that things might turn around. That you stand a chance of taking back Kalona. And then Act 2 ends and everything goes tits up. And the situation only grows more bleak and dire from there. And with each subsequent Act, we see Kalona fall more and more into ruin until practically nothing remains, the landscape entirely reshaped into a dark, oppressive wasteland.

I’ve seen some debate about who the ‘main character’ of E-Day is – Marcus? Dom? That classic pairing is certainly at the heart of the story. But E-Day features an impressive supporting cast. Mags and Lucas are the two new additions to Bravo Squad, but there are several other recurring characters who also shine throughout. But I wouldn’t say any of them are the ‘main’ character. I’d say Kalona is.

Because E-Day is about the fall of Kalona. We begin the game seeing Kalona as it was, and we end the game seeing the ruins that remain. We witness the transformation, the rapid devastation, every time we return to those hub maps – it’s environmental storytelling at its finest. Our characters undergo their own journeys throughout the Campaign, but it’s Kalona that truly changes and it’s what happens to Kalona that facilitates their growth.

Act 2 ends with a shift to a more linear approach and an ending that topped even the amazing ending of Act 1. And that’s the general design philosophy for each new chapter – an open hub to let the player slow down a little, followed by a ramping up of the action, pace and tension through a series of more linear environments, culminating in a spectacular finale.

Does that mean Act 3 tops Act 2 and Act 4 tops Act 3? Well, not quite. Act 3 I’d say certainly tops Act 2 as hard as it might be to believe, but Act 4 is where the Campaign does stumble a little – just a little! Act 4 probably just needed a little more tightening up, as there’s just a few too many repetitive encounters on your way. And whilst the final Act 5 is a sensibly shorter, entirely linear affair, it has – I’m sorry to say – the worst finale of them all.

Yes, E-Day falls a little flat on the final boss. To be clear: it’s not a bad final boss fight! In any other game I’d be quite happy with it! But when E-Day has set the bar so high, I expected a little more. Something more elaborate. Something with a little more spectacle. But whilst the ending may feel a little anti-climatic from a gameplay point of view, I’d say it nails the ending in terms of its narrative. Where our characters are, how they’ve changed, and where they’re going from here.

It took me nearly 20 hours to complete the Campaign in solo (it does support up to 4 player online co-op and 2 player split screen on console, and I fully intend to play the Campaign again in co-op in the future) on the Normal difficulty – although that included the time it took me to obsessively hunt down every collectible!

It’s a meaty campaign with a lot of replay value for you and your friends. And it looks absolutely amazing – E-Day is easily one of the best looking games you’ll ever play. It also sounds amazing, and the performance is shockingly good. And, most importantly – it feels amazing to play. Movement feels so refined and shooting so impactful. E-Day is a game with impeccable presentation in every department – it’s one of those rare occasions where the ‘AAA’ label truly lives up to the name.

And E-Day offers far more than just a fantastic campaign. I’ve already written quite a bit about the Multiplayer modes of E-Day in my beta impressions post, so I’ll try to keep this brief. E-Day has two modes – Versus, which is pretty much what you’d expect: a competitive PVP suite of multiplayer maps and game types along the lines of Team Deathmatch & Domination. Simple. Pure. Sweaty.

And then we have Horde Siege – a co-op focused extraction PVE mode in which you and a squad of four join two other squads on an open map with the goal of completing main and secondary missions to earn experience, claim weapon parts (used for upgrading weapons and unlocking new weapon mods) and extract alive.

And having now put nearly as much time into the release version of Horde Siege as I did in the beta, I’m pleased to say it’s even better now – with more mission types, more PVE ‘events’ popping off that push all the squads to work together and the welcome news that Siege isn’t considered ‘canon’.

Why is that a good thing? Well, it means they can roll out all kinds of new encounters and local invasion events in Siege that may not necessarily fit or make sense within the E-Day timeline, but will provide the replay value and variety the mode will need in order to keep players engaged over a longer period. It’s yet another smart design choice in a game full of smart design choices.

Overall, Gears of War: E-Day surpassed all my expectations in every department. With a fantastic campaign playable both in solo and co-op, with a fantastic suite of PVP and PVE multiplayer modes, with some of the best visuals and audio you’ll ever see or hear in a game and – most importantly – with gameplay that just feels so good that the gameplay alone makes you want to keep coming back for more.

9/10