Gears of War: E-Day Launches Today — Everything in the Game, and What’s Next on Game Pass

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 6, 2026 — Twenty years after Gears of War taught a generation of console players how to roadie-run and chainsaw-bayonet their way through the Locust Horde, The Coalition is taking the series back to the very beginning. Gears of War: E-Day launches today, October 6, on Xbox Series X|S, PC and Steam — and it is included day one in Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass, according to WindowsForum’s check of Xbox’s own store listings. This is Microsoft’s first-party release of the fall, and the one Polygon’s critics singled out as the month’s safest bet. Here is what you are actually getting, which edition makes sense, and everything else landing on the service this month.

The gameWhat E-Day is, and what’s in the box

E-Day is a prequel, not a sequel: the story is set 14 years before the original Gears of War, when the Locust Horde first erupts from underground on Emergence Day, and you play as Marcus Fenix and Dominic Santiago — younger, rawer versions of the characters the series has followed for two decades, per WindowsForum’s summary of Xbox’s official materials. The whole thing has been rebuilt in Unreal Engine 5, targeting 4K and up to 60 frames per second in campaign and multiplayer on a compatible display.

On content, the package is the full Gears treatment. The campaign is the origin story. Co-op brings back the feature fans have begged for: two-player split-screen on console, plus up to four players online across Campaign, Horde Siege and Versus. Horde Siege reworks the series’ signature wave-survival mode with four classes — Assault, Marksman, Medic and Breacher — larger maps, multiple squads working shared objectives, and world bosses. And Versus gets new maps, refined 4v4 modes and separate Ranked and Social playlists. One fine-print note: online co-op, Horde Siege and Versus require a Game Pass tier that includes online multiplayer.

The editionsWhat you paid, and what it bought you

Two price points, two different launch days. The standard edition is $69.99 and starts today. The $99.99 Premium Edition unlocked five days of early access starting October 1 at 8 a.m. Pacific — so premium owners have been playing since Thursday. Pre-installs opened September 29 on all three storefronts, and the launch was formally locked in when studio head Mike Crump announced the game had gone gold in a September 17 Xbox Wire post. If you are on Game Pass Ultimate or PC Game Pass, the standard game costs you nothing extra starting today — for most subscribers, that makes the edition debate a non-starter.

Game PassThe rest of October’s additions, with real context

E-Day is the headliner, but Radio Times’ confirmed list shows Game Pass getting ten additions this month — and a couple of them deserve more than a line in a table. Keeper opened the month on October 2, a surreal adventure of exploration and puzzle-solving that is listed for the Game Pass Premium tier rather than Ultimate — an oddball placement, so double-check your plan before you try it.

October 8 is a double drop. Echo Weaver, from Moonlight Kids and published by Akupara Games, is a knowledge-based Metroidvania built around a collapsing time loop — you play the last weaver, and each loop hands you more clues to optimize your route. The developers cite Outer Wilds and Ori and the Blind Forest as reference points, which is a strong pitch for the puzzle-minded. It launches alongside Neon Abyss 2, the sequel to the frenetic run-based roguelite, on Xbox Series X|S, PC and cloud for Ultimate and PC Game Pass.

October 13 brings Deep Dish Dungeon and the month’s other big day-one swing: Valor Mortis. This is the first-person Soulslike from One More Level, the Ghostrunner studio, published by Lyrical Games. You play William, a soldier of Napoleon’s Grande Armée raised from a battlefield grave into an alternate-history Europe swept by a mysterious plague — parries, dashes and finishers across several weapons, plus supernatural abilities. It is rated Mature 17+, priced at an aggressive $39.99 with a roughly 20-hour story, and a $59.99 Deluxe Edition that adds major story DLC next year. The studio took no pre-orders, saying it wants the finished game to speak for itself.

October 15 is split: Beyond These Stars is a PC-only Game Pass addition, joined by Chained Beasts on Series X|S, PC and cloud. The month then closes with two mystery-flavored late drops: The Séance of Blake Manor on October 27, which mixes investigation and supernatural mystery inside a hotel, and Terrible Lizards on October 29 — a parkour horror game set among abandoned animatronic dinosaurs at Dalton’s Dinos, a shuttered Route 66 attraction, where you are asked to find a missing child. Both arrive on Ultimate and PC Game Pass.

PS PlusAcross the fence: claim these before October 20

Xbox is not the only subscription with a calendar worth checking today. Radio Times reports that seven games leave PlayStation Plus on October 20 — and they are worth grabbing before they rotate out: Silent Hill 2 (PS5), Yakuza: Like a Dragon (PS5, PS4), Gloomhaven Mercenaries Edition (PS5, PS4), Jurassic World Evolution 2 (PS5, PS4), Rogue Lords (PS4), Lake (PS5, PS4) and Death Squared (PS4). Claim them now and they stay in your library as long as your subscription holds. Meanwhile, October’s Essential lineup — F1 25, Hunt: Showdown 1896 and Earth Defense Force: World Brothers 2 — is already live, as we covered when the month’s PS Plus games went live today. Two subscriptions, two calendars, one shared rule: the free games only matter if you actually claim them.