Every gun in Gears of War: E-Day was built from scratch for this game, whether it is a returning favourite or new. The studio has confirmed roughly a dozen by name and has said openly that it is holding some new weapons back, so the roster below is what is confirmed rather than what is complete.
Confirmed Roster
Weapon | Type | Confirmed detail |
|---|---|---|
Gnasher Shotgun | Shotgun | Uses the new round-by-round active reload. Ammunition capacity is cut from the previous 8 shells to 6 to balance against hot-reloading. A bayonet can be attached through Mods and Customization |
Breechshot | Marksman rifle | Returns with a one-shot headshot kill in player versus player, and a set of axe-based executions. Also uses round-by-round active reload. |
Prototype Lancer | Assault rifle | Higher rate of fire and a deeper magazine than recent Lancers, positioned as an all-round rifle. This is the chainsaw variant: the beta reward challenge is written as Prototype Lancer chainsaw executions. |
Lancer MK1 | Assault rifle | Labelled Lancer MK1, or Retro, in official copy. Deadly at close range and usable at mid to long range if the shooter can control its strong recoil. This is the bayonet Lancer, with a charge and an impaling execution. In the fiction of this period it is simply the Lancer, not a retro model. |
Hammerburst | Burst rifle | Modelled on the original game's version, with an accurate 6-round burst. A perfect active reload increases its rate of fire. |
Snub | Pistol | Also written as the MX8. Tuned closer to the earliest games: it fires as fast as the trigger is pulled and is very quick to draw and stow, which makes it a clean-up weapon. It is also the first gun Bravo Squad picks up in the campaign, taken off a police car. |
Longshot | Sniper rifle | Returns as the long-range option, rewarding patience and precision. First-person scopes now have sway. |
Gut Puncher | Grenade launcher | New. Fires armour-piercing explosive rounds with player-controlled detonation: quick-fire and let it blow, or hold the trigger to place the explosion behind an enemy's cover. |
Incinerator | Shotgun | New, and Locust-made. Fires raw Imulsion and melts targets on contact. |
Heavy Boomshot | Heavy weapon | The Locust Prototype Boomshot, classified as a Heavy Weapon so it can hit hard while staying balanced. Carried by Boomers. |
Vulcan | Heavy weapon | Confirmed present in the campaign. A lone Gear is holding a grocery store with one when Bravo Squad reaches him. No stats have been published. |
The Chainsaw Lancer Origin
The chainsaw attachment is a story beat rather than a starting loadout. In this period the standard rifle carries a detachable bayonet, and the chainsaw Lancer is kit-bashed from a prototype on the battlefield during the invasion. The chainsaw itself came from a hardware store, and the scene that triggers the invention is a bayonet snapping while Marcus is pinned, with Tai Kaliso intervening. The team describes lifting that scene from existing material where it happens roughly a year later, and moving it into this game largely intact.
The point where the finished prototype changes hands has since been placed. Act 2, Chapter 2 takes Bravo Squad to Oria Stadium, a Kalona landmark converted into a forward operating base, and the weapon is offered to the squad there during downtime rather than mid-firefight. It is described as crudely but thoughtfully bolted together from a standard-issue Lancer and an old chainsaw.
The rest of that act's beats are on Campaign Acts and Chapters.
Heavy Weapons
Heavy Weapons behave differently here. You are slowed while carrying one, but most movement is still possible rather than being locked out of it. Heavies can also be ripped straight off turret bases, which the studio calls a good way to acquire one during Horde Siege.
Active Reload and Handling
The Gnasher and Breechshot use a round-by-round active reload that loads shells one at a time, and the reload can be interrupted to fire immediately. That trades a smaller loaded capacity for getting a shot out under pressure. Perfect active reloads matter on other guns too: the Hammerburst gains rate of fire from one. Full handling detail, including ballistics and executions, is on Combat and Gunplay.
Pre-Launch Tuning
The September 30, 2026 patch notes list the weapon changes made since the Open Beta. They describe each change as an increase or a reduction without publishing values.
Weapon | Change since the Open Beta |
|---|---|
Prototype Lancer | Damage set to a value between the two beta weekends |
Lancer MK1 | Damage reduced |
Vulcan | Damage reduced |
Hammerburst | Damage increased |
Gnasher Shotgun | Damage increased when aiming down sights at range; hipfire made more consistent |
Snub | Rate of fire reduced |
Gut Puncher | Spare ammo reduced |
Gnasher Hipfire
The Gnasher's aimed shot fires from the camera position, as it has in every game in the series, and that is unchanged. Hipfire is where the game departs from its predecessors: when you fire from the hip at a target, the game checks both a shot from the muzzle and a shot from the camera and applies whichever better matches what the player would expect. The studio describes this hybrid as a first for the series, intended so that a shot that looks like it should hit does hit, and says it will keep watching player data and feedback for further tuning.
Where Weapons Differ by Mode
Mode | Weapon rules |
|---|---|
Weapon Mods are available. The Premium Edition adds a Bravo Squad Signature Weapon Pack for campaign use only. | |
Weapon Mods are available and shared across classes. Weapons can also be bought mid-mission at Supply Caches, and turret-mounted heavies can be detached. | |
No weapon mods at all. Every player starts with the same loadout, and teams contest on-map power weapons instead. |
Grenades and Equipment
Throwables and deployables sit in their own inventory slot and are covered on Grenades and Equipment. Confirmed types are Frag, Incendiary and a rebuilt Smoke Grenade that uses volumetric smoke to block both player and enemy sightlines.
Names That Are Not Confirmed
Several weapon names circulate for this game that appear in no first-party material. They are deliberately absent from the table above and will only be added if the developers or the shipped build confirm them.
One of those names has since been confirmed in first-party text. The pre-launch patch notes fix an issue in which Tickers were immune to Gorehooks, so the Gorehook is in the game, but no description, class or stats have been published for it and it stays out of the table until they are. The same notes say that select weapons from earlier games in the series are not in the launch version, without naming them.