E-Day Is Exactly What Lapsed Fans Like Me Needed

As I’ve mentioned innumerable times on this website, I was an Xbox 360 kid. I was raised on Halo, Fable, Mass Effect, and of course, Gears of War. I’ve played every Gears, each one on couch co-op with my older brother. It’s become a family tradition. I’ll never forget the experiences we had together seeing the narrative play out in Gears 1-3, some gripping occasions, like Tai’s death, I remember viscerally even though I was only 10 or so years old.

However, I remember very little of our Gears 5 playthrough in 2019, except for brief flashes of the protagonist Kait and old man Marcus. Gears 4 and Gears 5 just lacked the intensity of their predecessors, that sort of claustrophobic, gritty and often hopeless feeling of fighting the Locusts.

The Good ‘Ol Days

I don’t think it was because of forgettable characters or anything like that. I was actually a bit annoyed they kept wheeling out Marcus, trying to capture some of what they’d lost with the transition from Epic Games to The Coalition (a similar phenomenon occurred in Halo). There was an opportunity to take the series in a new direction, and I don’t think the new developers quite managed it.

So, you can imagine how happy I was to see a young Marcus Fenix in the trailer for Gears of War: E-Day. The familiar tones of ‘Mad World’ in the background were icing on the cake, as the memories of playing Gears of War 2 came flooding back to me. I want to battle the Locusts shoulder to shoulder with my comrades in a hopeless attempt to save humanity.

E-Day happens 14 years before Gears of War, prior to Marcus and Dominic experiencing a decade of fighting Locusts. We’re going to see a more vulnerable side of the dynamic dup as they grapple with having just fought the Pendulum Wars, only to be thrust into a new existential conflict.

I hope we’re going to see a more human side of the characters of Gears, who are well-oiled fighting machines when we meet them in the original Gears of War. There’s plenty of scope to expand the worldbuilding of Sera and the characterisation of the series’ beloved characters. It’s going to be a treat to see the landscape in the early days of the Locust War before a decade of constant war has worn it down.

We’re also going to witness the strengthening of the bond between Marcus and Dom. Their friendship is apparent when we meet them in Gears of War. They were friendly prior to E-Day, too, but I’d like to see some distance and apprehension between the pair so we can truly appreciate the events that ultimately brought them together.

The Coalition hasn’t announced how many years of the Locust War E-Day will cover. There’s over a decade to work with prior to the beginning of Gears of War. Will we just see the opening year of the conflict or are we going to witness Marcus making the decision that landed him in military prison? The possibilities are very exciting to think about.

For the first time in a long time, I’m genuinely excited about the next Gears of War.

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