UPDATE 6.09pm: And, just when I hit publish, Asha Sharma confirmed that Gears of War: E-Day will be an Xbox console exclusive. It arrives on 6th October, and will be available day one with Game Pass.
As well as this release date, we also have a new Gears of War: E-Day gameplay trailer. “Experience the horror and brutality of Emergence Day,” reads the blurb. “Fourteen years before the original Gears of War, join Marcus Fenix and Dominic Santiago in a gripping origin-story campaign as the Locust Horde first erupts from below, igniting a desperate fight for survival.”
Gears of War: E-Day | Gameplay Demo Reveal | XBOX Games Showcase 2026. Watch on YouTube
The original story continues below.
ORIGINAL 6pm: It has been claimed that Gears of War: E-Day – which serves as a prequel to the original Gears of War, and is set 14 years before the events of that game – is no longer coming to PlayStation 5.
That’s according to Jeff Grubb, who was talking during a recent Giant Bomb stream. “Gears of War: E-Day was going to be on PS5,” Grubb said. “It’s not anymore. That just happened. That is a decision that just got made.” Grubb added that Xbox is “going backwards on this stuff”.
XBOX Games Showcase and Gears of War: E-Day Direct Livestream. Watch on YouTube
Said Grubb: “They were like ‘this battle doesn’t make any sense’, now they’re like, ‘exclusives!’ To what, sell another 20m Xboxes?”
It was originally reported that Xbox Studio’s Gears of War: E-Day would be coming to PlayStation 5 consoles last year. This was at a time when Xbox had been steadily adding more of its games to additional platforms. This included the likes of Grounded, Sea of Thieves and Hi-Fi Rush. Microsoft then went on to release the likes of Forza Horizon 5 and Indiana Jones and the Great Circle on PlayStation. Meanwhile, the original Gears of War was also released on PlayStation last year, as part of the revamped “Reloaded” edition of the game.
However, there have since been a number of high profile changes at Xbox, most notably Asha Sharma taking over from Phil Spencer as the brand’s CEO in February. Sarah Bond also left Xbox at this time. Since her appointment, Sharma has been making a number of changes at Xbox, including cutting the price of Game Pass by taking Call of Duty out of the service.
Earlier this month, Sharma spoke about the company’s stance on exclusivity for first-party games, stating she is aware that platforms “need” exclusive content, but also that successful publishers need to reach players everywhere they can.
At the time of writing, a PEGI listing for Gears of War: E-Day still lists PS5 as a release platform, so if indeed the game does end up skipping Sony’s console, this was clearly a very recent decision.
A dedicated Gears of War stream is scheduled for later this evening (7th June), so we will hopefully have clarification one way or another on E-Day’s release platforms. Before that, we also have the Xbox Games Showcase in a matter of minutes. Our Lottie is once again covering the roundup as the show happens, so be sure to stay tuned for all of the announcements and trailers to come.
