To quote Cliffy B himself, Gears of War: E-Day is the perfect example of just giving the people what they want. And what we wanted was chainsaw guns and steroids.

Up front, I’ll state that this review might not cover all the bases that some other reviews do, because I’ve only played the campaign. But if you’re also a dad in your 30s with limited gaming time, then stick around. I’m probably exactly the sort of person this game is aimed at.

I’ve loved Gears of War through to Gears 4, but unfortunately, I just never really gelled with Gears 5. There was plenty to like about it, but the open-world segments left me feeling increasingly burned out. I didn’t particularly want to spend my limited gaming time wandering around looking for the next objective. I wanted to get into cover, shoot some Locust and watch something explode.

And that’s exactly what E-Day delivers.

This feels like a genuine return to form for the series. I pop into cover, I pop some Locust heads and I carry on. There’s no messing about, no unnecessary distractions and no desperate attempt to reinvent a formula that was already brilliant in the first place. It’s Gears of War doing Gears of War things, and I couldn’t be happier.

It’s amazing how quickly I fell back into all my old bullshit, though. Active reloads felt like slipping into a comfy pair of old socks. That little bit of extra satisfaction when you nail one never gets old, and it’s something I didn’t realise I’d missed quite so much. The weapon handling, the familiar movement between cover and the rhythm of an encounter all came back almost immediately.

And then I unlocked the Torque Bow.

That was me sorted for the rest of the game. Lancer, Torque Bow, Snub. Job done. I don’t need your fancy weapon combinations or whatever else you’re offering. I’ve found my loadout and I’m sticking with it.

There’s something quite special about a game that can make its action feel genuinely tense while also being incredibly comforting. E-Day manages to pull off both. There are encounters where you’re desperately trying to find a bit of cover, keep your ammunition topped up and work out which enemy needs dealing with first. The Locust are still absolute bastards, and the game does a brilliant job of making you feel like you’re fighting for survival.

But there’s also a familiarity to it all. I know this series so well that even when things get hectic, I feel completely at home. I know how I want to approach a firefight, I know which weapons I prefer and I know exactly how satisfying it is to land that perfect active reload before getting back into the action.

That’s not to say E-Day is simply coasting on nostalgia. There’s a reason these mechanics worked so well in the first place, and playing them again in a new campaign is a reminder of just how good the original formula was. Cover-based shooters have come and gone, but Gears still has an identity that very few games have managed to replicate.

One of the things I particularly appreciate is how little the game seems interested in wasting my time. As someone who has to squeeze gaming around work, family and everything else that comes with being in your 30s, that’s increasingly important to me. I don’t necessarily need every game to offer 100 hours of content or an enormous map full of icons. Sometimes I just want to sit down, play for an hour and feel like I’ve actually had a bloody good time.

There’s no huge satisfaction moment that comes close to killing General RAAM on the train in the original Gears of War. That’s still one of my favourite gaming moments, and I’m not sure anything in E-Day quite reaches those heights. But I don’t necessarily think that’s a negative. That particular encounter was so perfectly executed that expecting every subsequent Gears game to recreate it would be unfair.

Fuck Flayers, though. Seriously. I’m genuinely tempted to drop the score by a point just because of them. They’re the sort of enemy that makes you question every decision you’ve made up to that point, and not in a particularly enjoyable way. I appreciate that a game needs to challenge you, but these things can absolutely get in the fucking bin.

Still, that’s a relatively minor complaint in what has been an overwhelmingly enjoyable campaign.

Ultimately, Gears of War: E-Day is exactly what I wanted it to be. It reminds me why I fell in love with this series in the first place without making me feel like I’m simply replaying an old game. It’s familiar, it’s brutal, it’s wonderfully straightforward and it understands that sometimes the best thing you can do with a beloved franchise is give people more of what made them love it.

Chainsaw guns. Steroids. Locust.

What more do you want?

9/10