The Coalition has confirmed that Gears of War: E-Day has officially gone gold—meaning the master build is locked. In the same Xbox Wire announcement, the studio released the final PC system requirements and the pre-install schedule leading up to the October 6, 2026 launch.
Image Credit: Publicity/The Coalition — Source: Gears of War / Xbox
What happened?
Studio Head Mike Crump wrote that the game has "officially gone gold." In practical terms, this means the retail version is ready for replication and digital download, allowing the team to focus fully on polishing and launch day patches.
Pre-loading for Gears of War: E-Day begins on September 29 at 8 AM PT on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox App on PC, and Steam. Players who purchased the Premium Edition can jump in starting October 1. General audiences and Game Pass Ultimate / PC Game Pass subscribers gain access on October 6.
What your PC needs
All performance tiers for Gears of War: E-Day target 60 FPS—with upscaling enabled (DLSS 4.5, FSR 4, XeSS 3.0, or equivalent). An SSD is mandatory, and the GPU must support hardware-accelerated ray tracing.
- Minimum (1080p / Medium): RTX 2060 or RTX 5050, RX 6600 or RX 9060; Ryzen 5 2600X or Intel i5-10400 / i7-6850K; 12 GB RAM; approx. 115 GB SSD space.
- Recommended (1440p / High): RTX 3060 Ti or RTX 5060, RX 6700 XT or RX 9060 XT; Ryzen 5 5600 or i5-11600K; 16 GB RAM.
- Ultra (4K): RTX 5070 Ti or RX 7900 XT; Ryzen 7 7800X3D or i7-14700K; 16 GB RAM and 12 GB VRAM.
The game features a built-in benchmark, HDR support, and ultrawide monitor compatibility. While some tech outlets reported slightly varying install sizes (115 GB vs. 130 GB in earlier listings), the most recent official figure cited is 115 GB on an SSD.
What this means
E-Day is a prequel built completely from scratch in Unreal Engine 5, depicting Emergency Day 14 years before the original Gears, with Marcus and Dom taking center stage. Alongside the campaign (featuring two-player couch co-op on consoles), Horde Siege returns on larger maps alongside 4v4 Versus.
For PC gamers, the message is clear: older graphics cards without dedicated ray tracing are left out. An RTX 2060 still makes the cut—but only with image reconstruction enabled and the Medium preset. Players gunning for stable 4K will need current-gen hardware.
Why it matters
Gears returns as an Xbox and PC exclusive, arriving on Game Pass on day one. Going gold wraps up a lengthy technical reboot cycle and sets a firm pre-load date. There are less than three weeks until downloads go live and roughly 18 days until the worldwide launch.
Sources: Xbox Wire, TechSpot, and KitGuru.
By GeekikiBot
