Marcus Fenix
Voiced again by John DiMaggio. A young Pendulum Wars veteran with no idea what peace is supposed to look like.
Campaign · spoiler-light · checked Oct 7, 2026
The campaign
Marcus, Dom and two new squadmates in the first three days of the Locust invasion. Setup, co-op, and what to collect, without story spoilers.
The setup
E-Day takes place fourteen years before the first Gears of War. Sera has just declared peace after nearly eighty years of the Pendulum Wars, and Marcus Fenix and Dom Santiago are home, attending an armistice memorial in the city of Kalona, when the ground opens and the Locust come up from below.
Neither man is in a good place. Both are grieving Carlos Santiago, Dom's older brother and Marcus's best friend, who was killed just before the war ended, and the two of them have drifted apart. The Coalition drew on Karen Traviss's Gears novels for that history, and she consulted on the game.
The story covers three days in one city. The first night is confusion and panic, the second day is about regrouping with the military, and by the third it's clear this is happening everywhere. Early on, the enemies are feral Wretches that behave like animals. Armed Locust Drones come later, and the squad has to work out that it's facing an organized army.
Bravo Squad
Dom Santiago
Voiced again by Carlos Ferro. Home to a family, and still carrying his brother's death.
Mags Carter
New, played by Elizabeth Ludlow. A former Gear now working at Kalona's Imulsion refinery.
Lucas Reyes
New, played by Jake Ryan Lozano. A young cadet and communications officer who never made it to the front line.
You can play the whole campaign as any of the four from the start. The camera never leaves Bravo Squad, so you only learn what they learn. Tai Kaliso, from the comics and Gears of War 2, is one of the other Kalona defenders they run into.
Co-op and split-screen
- Solo, or co-op with up to four players online.
- Two-player split-screen on console. Split-screen isn't available on PC.
- On Xbox, online co-op needs a Game Pass subscription that includes online multiplayer.
- Finishing every act in co-op, on any difficulty, is its own achievement.
Acts, difficulty and extras
The campaign is five acts and 26 chapters. The Coalition's creative director told IGN in June that it runs over 14 hours, longer than any campaign the studio has built, with more collectibles than ever. That figure is from a press interview, not from the shipped game.
- Mostly linear, with open districts: the game hands you a map in the semi-open chapters (Act 2 Chapter 2, Act 3 Chapter 3, Act 4 Chapters 1 and 3, and Act 5's Ghost Town). That is where most of the side content is.
- Difficulty: Insane is the top tier the achievements name, and players also mention Casual. The Coalition says there are more difficulty settings than ever and that changing some of them in the campaign moves your tier to match. One guide says that in online co-op each player can pick their own difficulty.
- Side missions: 17 optional tasks in Acts 2 to 4, with their own achievement. All 17, with starts and rewards →
- Hard Cases and collectibles: 125 Hard Cases and 140 collectibles, each with an achievement, and "For Whom the Bell Tolls" needs every hidden item on Insane. The checklist and every location → · Hard Cases →
- Supply Caches and weapon mods: 36 cache stations where you swap weapons and fit mods, which you earn from Hard Cases and side missions. Where they are, and what Quartermaster counts →
- Replay: chapters can be replayed to pick up what you missed. The 100% route shows what to finish before you move on.
- Bravo Squad Signature Weapon Pack: Premium owners get it, and it only works in the campaign.
Sources: PureXbox, quoting IGN's interview, June 2026 ↗, the official achievements list ↗, gameplay updates ↗ and The Nerd Stash's co-op guide ↗.
The 26 chapters
The chapter list the collectibles pages are organised by. No story detail here.
| Act | Chapters |
|---|---|
| Act 1 | 1 Emergence · 2 Survival of the Fittest · 3 A Gear in Need · 4 Back in the Fold |
| Act 2 | 1 Bravo Squad · 2 Hold the Line · 3 No Gear Left Behind · 4 Flyboys · 5 Overrun |
| Act 3 | 1 Stranded · 2 Enemy Lines · 3 Last Foothold · 4 The Convoy · 5 Desperate Times · 6 Desperate Measures |
| Act 4 | 1 Hope and Ruin · 2 Technical Difficulties · 3 Tough as Nails · 4 Signals · 5 Paths Diverge · 6 Critical Failure |
| Act 5 | 1 One Problem at a Time · 2 Ghost Town · 3 Storm Clouds · 4 Resolute · 5 The Fall of Kalona |
Chapter names are from a first-hand guide's chapter lists; the ones visible on in-game War Journal screenshots match. "Flyboys" is written "Fly Boys" in one place.
What's different in combat
E-Day was rebuilt from scratch in Unreal Engine 5, and nothing was carried over from older games. It still plays like Gears, from cover, but you have more ways to move:
- Low cover, and going prone when the top half of your cover gets shot away.
- Sprint, slide (you can shoot while sliding), jump, and climb or mantle without entering cover first.
- Gaps under trucks and through walls that you can crawl through or shoot through.
- Bullets travel and drop, so long shots need leading. You can swap shoulders while aiming.
- The Omen on screen shows which direction damage is coming from, and a counter shows how many more downs you can take.
Enemies worth knowing
- Armored Wretches can scream and stun you. There's even an achievement for getting revenge on one.
- Seeders are mini-bosses now. Get close and draw them out of their holes to expose the weak spot.
- Boomers soak up a lot of damage, but at low health you can finish them with the Lancer chainsaw.
- Reavers drop off squads of Drones, and if they stay, they cling to walls and fire from above.