Playing solo, Gears of War: E-Day is a perfectly serviceable third-person shooter. Playing with a friend? On the same screen? Gears of War: E-Day is transcendent.
This is largely due to the modern gaming landscape, which has seen couch co-op games become as fleetingly rare as other once-common aspects of daily life, like Cava bowls and reading comprehension. Gears of War set the standard for local co-op back in the 2000s. During the Xbox 360 era, couch co-op games were everywhere. Even Insomniac made one. But due to a wide range of factors — shifting player tastes, technological restrictions, balance sheets — developers moved away from the trend. In 2026, Gears of War: E-Day stands out for offering a mode that’s more than just perfunctory. It’s essential.
“Splitscreen, specifically on console, that’s core to Gears,” Gears of War brand director Nicole Fawcette told me during an interview at Gamescom 2026. “That’s always been the DNA of the game. Like we are… We’ve always been a co-op game.”
Developed by The Coalition and out now in early access on Windows PC and Xbox Series X (with a full release on Oct. 6), Gears of War: E-Day is Xbox’s marquee game of the fall. Like the previous entries in the series, E-Day is a third-person shooter. But this one is the series’ first prequel. It explores the inciting event (Emergence Day, or “E-Day”) that kicked off Gears canon, teeing off two decades of games starring 400 lb.-meatheads battling armies of subterranean mutants.
Earlier this year, I played a few early hours of its single-player campaign. It’s good! It’s solid. It’s… Gears of War.
Playing that same segment a friend, though, was like taking the DeLorean back to 2006. For starters, this is the smoothest local co-op shooter I’ve set up in ages. Here’s how it works: You pick up your controller and boot up the game. Your friend picks up their controller and joins your party. That’s it. No need to try to remember old passwords. No need to create a new account from scratch. A guest login works perfectly fine for Gears of War: E-Day. (When Halo Infinite added a co-op mode years after release, these hurdles felt like a final ignominy for a feature that had never posed an issue.)
The nostalgia factor is undeniable. My friend and I quickly found ourselves back in a familiar rhythm of calling out enemies, pointing out ammo boxes, rescuing each other when pinned, reviving each other when downed, and, yes, stealing the sniper rifle. While you can do all of this over comms, of course, there really is something to be said about playing the same game in the same physical space. Pretty much the only difference now is that we can (legally) drink beer instead of sneaking it in Mountain Dew bottles.
“Every time a fan comes up like, ‘Oh, I used to play this game with my brother,’ ‘I used to play this game with my dad,’ whoever. We just kind of lean into it,” art director Aryan Hanbeck said.
This ethos manifests even in E-Day’s finer details. Dialogue between the two primary characters — Marcus Fenix and Dominic Santiago, bros 4 lyfe — could quite literally have been cribbed from Xbox 360 headset audio in 2008. Let’s say you and your friend both spot a sniper rifle on the ground. If the player controlling Dom grabs the gun first, Dom in-game will shout, “Dibs!” Similarly, if the player controlling Marcus lands a particularly impressive headshot, in-game Marcus will be suitably incredulous. “Did you see that?!” (Sorry bro, I did not.)
Yes, if nothing else, Gears of War: E-Day knows its audience.
“We talk about the shared experiences, the shared memories of so many people who experienced the original trilogy playing it with somebody else,” Fawcette said. “That’s a non-negotiable for us, no matter what. That’s also what makes us special. […] Some people either put it into their games or don’t, and for us, we always have that.”
As of this writing, Gears of War: E-Day features parties of up to four players, but only supports two players per screen. According to Hanbeck, that’s due to technical limitations. E-Day also launched absent other features that have been series staples, including leaderboards, private lobbies, and “meat shields.” But there was never going to be a world where it didn’t feature some form of local co-op.
“Having different ways to play with friends is so integral, so part of Gears, that it feels weird to remove one of those,” Hanbeck said. “Even if it’s not that popular anymore or not found in a lot of games.”