This page collects official patch notes and update details for Gears of War: E-Day. The first entry is the set of changes the studio published on September 30, 2026, the day before early access opened, covering multiplayer work done since the Open Beta in August 2026. Later updates will be added here as they are released.
Pre-Launch Update (September 30, 2026)
The notes list fixes and changes made to multiplayer since August, alongside new settings that apply across the game. Values are described in the notes only as increases or reductions; no exact numbers were published.
Weapon Tuning
Weapon | Change |
|---|---|
Prototype Lancer | Damage set to a value between the two Open Beta weekends |
Lancer Mk1 | Damage reduced |
Vulcan | Damage reduced |
Hammerburst | Damage increased |
Gnasher | Damage increased when aiming down sights at range, and hipfire made more consistent |
Snub | Rate of fire reduced |
Gut-Puncher | Spare ammo reduced |
The Gnasher hipfire change comes from a new aiming model. Aimed shots still fire from the camera position, as in every game in the series. Hipfire now checks both a muzzle-oriented and a camera-oriented shot and applies the one that better matches what the player would expect, which the studio describes as a first for the series. See Weapons.
Movement and Cover Tuning
Strafe movement made more responsive.
Cover enter speed and the distance of the cover-enter cancel adjusted.
Cover Slip speed reduced.
Slide distance reduced.
The systems themselves are described on Movement and Cover.
Horde Siege Tuning
Energy icons adjusted in brightness and opacity.
Repair objective difficulty adjusted.
Lower health threshold for executing a Boomer, Flayer or Grinder with a Prototype Lancer.
Fewer Weapon Part rewards for taking part in invasions and from Weapon Part Stockpiles.
All Invasions made more difficult, and the Commander and Allfather difficulties made harder.
Medic stim duration adjusted.
Equipment costs increased.
Some Squad Perks reduced in impact, and Squad Perks cost more Energy.
See Horde Siege, Horde Siege Classes and Energy and Supply Caches.
Versus Tuning
Wave respawn time reduced.
Trading made less frequent, to feel more fair and consistent.
Scoring adjusted in Demolition and in Crucible.
See Versus.
Bug Fixes
Area | Fix |
|---|---|
All platforms | Stability, performance and optimisation improvements across PC, Xbox and handhelds |
PC | Graphics settings no longer reset between launches |
PC | Missing explosion effects at Low quality settings fixed |
PC | Additional input delay on mouse and keyboard fixed |
PC | Mouse and keyboard lighting effects now display properly |
Controls | Inconsistent Sprint release delay on the Legacy control settings fixed |
Weapons | Adjustments made to prevent macro abuse of semi-automatic weapons |
Weapons | Players can no longer shoot enemies that are not in front of the barrel while aiming down sights |
Horde Siege | Tickers are now flung properly when kicked |
Horde Siege | Tickers are no longer immune to Gorehooks |
Horde Siege | Blast charges delivered during the Corpser Invasion Event now register |
Horde Siege | More reliable objective starts, and several objectives that could fail to complete now complete |
Horde Siege | Switching which squadmate you spectate while COG tagged is more reliable |
Horde Siege | Some enemies that could fail to path at certain objectives now path correctly |
Horde Siege | Lobby and Barracks inconsistencies and interaction errors fixed |
Versus | Ranked or social players no longer get stuck on the Waiting for Other Players screen |
Versus | Squads can no longer exceed four members |
Versus | Team Deathmatch matches no longer end too early |
General | Abandoned turrets can be interacted with again |
General | Destructible objects no longer stick to players |
General | A lingering Marksman UAV visual effect and stray Mortar strike effects fixed |
General | Boss health bars and locators scale correctly |
General | Ranking up from Onyx 3 displays correctly |
General | Several scoring errors, matchmaking errors and timeouts fixed |
New Settings and Quality of Life
Platform | Change |
|---|---|
All platforms | A field of view slider |
All platforms | Improved HDR calibration, with the interface paper-white level adjustable on its own |
All platforms | Chromatic Aberration and Film Grain can each be turned off |
PC | Max FPS can be set to 30, 60, 90, 120, 144, 240 or Unlimited, and Unlimited does not cap the frame rate |
PC | Multi frame generation is optionally supported |
PC | A setting to turn Lamp device support for mouse and keyboard lighting on or off |
Multiplayer | Player XP adjusted so that Horde Siege and Versus progress at a closer rate |
Multiplayer | Backfill AI bot behaviour improved |
Xbox | The completion achievement The Lucky Ones Died on E-Day removed to support the upcoming Mythic Achievements feature. Completing all other achievements still awards the I AM A GEAR Player Title, and the achievement remains on Steam. See Achievements |
The full option lists are on Settings and Controls and PC Features and Graphics Options.
Advanced Shader Delivery
On PC, Advanced Shader Delivery is a new feature that significantly reduces the time spent compiling shaders across different hardware configurations, and it applies to supported games in the Xbox PC app. At launch it works on AMD hardware, with NVIDIA support coming later in October 2026. Players running the game outside the Xbox PC app may still benefit if the app is installed on a Windows 11 PC, because the required shaders can then be pre-installed.
Launch Known Issues
The same post listed five known issues for launch.
Issue | Detail |
|---|---|
Memory over a long session | Playing through the entire campaign without reloading checkpoints or restarting may cause memory issues. Reload a checkpoint if an encounter or objective becomes blocked |
Benchmark overlay | The performance overlay in Benchmark mode does not count generated frames, so it can report a lower frame rate than the real one |
Game process | The game process may keep running after the game is closed; it can be ended from Task Manager |
Joining a co-op save | Players who join a lobby working through an existing save receive all earlier secondary objective and Hard Case progress in the War Journal, along with the matching Forge rewards. See Co-Op and Split-Screen |
Offline play on PC | Unavailable until October 6, 2026 |
Features Not in the Launch Version
Alongside the notes, the studio addressed questions about series features that are missing. It said that because the gameplay sandbox was built from scratch for the campaign, PvE and PvP together, not every legacy feature could be included at launch. It named Meat Shields, Chainsaw Duels, select weapons from earlier games, Private Lobbies and leaderboards, said they are not gone from the series, and said the team is weighing how and what to deliver after launch or in its next title. No dates were given.