According to Xbox Wire, Gears of War: E-Day entered early access today for Premium Edition owners and Game Pass subscribers with the premium upgrade. The game launches fully on October 6 for Xbox Series X|S and PC.
The Coalition marked the early access start with a launch trailer featuring Metallica's "For Whom the Bell Tolls". The game is the franchise's first mainline entry in seven years and serves as a prequel to the original Gears of War, centered on Emergence Day, when the Locust invade the planet Sera.
Critical reception has been strong so far. According to GamesRadar, the game holds an 88 Metacritic score based on 50 critic reviews, marking the franchise's best reception since Epic Games stopped developing it. Eurogamer described the gameplay as faithful to the series: "Gears of War is back, alright, and it's like it never left."
On PC, the game supports Advanced Shader Delivery (ASD), a feature that dramatically cuts shader compilation time when launching the game, as reported by GameSpot. The campaign runs between 10 to 14 hours on normal difficulty, according to GameSpot.
