Preview The Gears of War: E-Day Beta Shows UE5 Visuals at Their Best, Despite Sometimes Shaky Performance on Series X/S

Gears of War: E-Day has arrived in beta form, offering a glimpse of The Coalition's latest project ahead of its 6th October launch. As well as being a key Xbox Series X/S exclusive (that's also coming to PC), E-Day also has the potential to be a showcase of how a modern Unreal Engine 5 title can balance ray-traced visuals and 60fps performance on current-gen consoles.

On the Xbox Series X, the title boasts a highly impressive visual suite that makes the most of Unreal Engine 5's feature set - most notably Nanite assets, hardware Lumen global illumination and reflections, and MegaLights, three significant inclusions for a 60fps console game. While titles like Halo: Campaign Evolved and Fortnite have blazed this trail, E-Day further cements hardware-accelerated lighting as the new standard for the current generation.

Closer inspection reveals some necessary trade-offs of this approach. While mirror reflections in puddles are remarkably clear, there are compromises; animated foliage remains static in reflections, while transparent surfaces miss out on specular ray tracing. The developers have leaned into the game's dusty, war-torn aesthetic, opting for diffuse metals and stone, which cleverly mitigates the need for constant, glossy ray-traced reflections.

The Lumen diffuse global illumination largely hits the mark, particularly given the naturally lit beta maps. While there are occasional instances of over-occlusion or lighting breakup within dense foliage, the presentation is consistently pleasing. It represents a robust, if not perfectly stable, implementation of Epic's latest rendering technology.

Unfortunately, the multiplayer beta demonstrates a relative lack of destructibility compared to what was showcased for the single-player offering. Elements that were once hallmarks of the series - chipping pillars, breaking lights and destroying cover - appear largely absent here. While minor props are physicalised and some elements are destructible, the environment retains a static feel, suggesting the most impressive set-piece destruction may be reserved for the campaign.

The Series X offers three modes in total: performance (60fps), quality (30fps) and balanced (40fps). While quality mode offers a higher internal resolution (1224p vs 1080p in balanced and ~1000p in performance) and slightly better-defined lighting, the visual differences remain subtle. Unfortunately, both modes are somewhat hampered by persistent chromatic aberration and film grain, which cannot be disabled, often resulting in a softer, slightly distorted image.

When it comes to frame rates, the performance mode delivers a consistent 60fps in competitive versus matches. However, the PVE horde modes prove more demanding, occasionally dipping into the 50s during intense encounters. While these fluctuations are not uncommon for pre-release code, they currently detract from an otherwise smooth experience - and I hope they'll be ironed out before release. Swapping to balanced or quality modes returns a more consistent frame-rate, though we didn't have time to fully explore balanced mode during the limited beta window. Likewise, the game also supports eco and VRR modes, which we'll look to test properly during the full release.

The Xbox Series S experience mirrors that of its more powerful sibling, albeit with necessary graphical concessions - including much lower internal resolutions, counted at ~576p in performance and balanced modes and ~720p in quality mode, plus some slightly aggressive variable rate shading and lower-quality textures. Performance mode sees reduced foliage animation and simplified shadows, with screen-space reflections replacing ray-traced ones. Despite these cuts, the game retains a similar frame-rate profile to the Series X, though it shares the same minor performance hitches during dense horde encounters.

Ultimately, Gears of War: E-Day is shaping up to be a standout example of what Unreal Engine 5 can achieve on consoles. The art style and lighting mesh well with UE5's strengths, and despite the minor performance jitters in multiplayer, the core foundation is solid. With potential for greater stability in the final release and the promise of some impressive single-player set-pieces, it is a title that should be on every Xbox owner's radar.