Gears of War E-Day is shaping up to be an impressive technical showcase for Unreal Engine 5, according to Digital Foundry’s analysis of an extended campaign preview. The footage, covering around an hour of early Act 2 gameplay, shows major improvements over Gears 5 in lighting, character rendering and environmental detail, although some image quality and performance issues remain in the pre-release build.
One of the game’s biggest technical features is Hardware Lumen, which is being used for diffuse and specular global illumination. The technology provides softer indirect lighting, dynamic shadows and reflections across locations including railway stations, underpasses and city streets.
The Coalition has also confirmed that E-Day uses Epic’s Megalights technology. It allows the game to handle large numbers of dynamic and area lights, with Digital Foundry highlighting how the system works particularly well in enclosed environments.
Weapon muzzle flashes can dynamically illuminate nearby surroundings and cast shadows across objects. Digital Foundry considers this particularly notable because Megalights was originally demonstrated on console hardware with a 30 FPS target, while the Xbox Series X Performance mode in E-Day targets 60 FPS.
Gears Of War E-Day Performance Modes
The Xbox Series X version includes Performance, Balanced and Quality modes. Performance targets 60 FPS, Balanced targets 40 FPS and Quality targets 30 FPS.
Digital Foundry measured internal resolutions of roughly 900p to 1000p in Performance mode, around 1080p in Balanced and approximately 1152p in Quality. The Balanced and Quality modes were described as virtually locked to their respective frame rate targets in the preview.
Performance mode was less consistent, with most gameplay remaining close to 60 FPS but some stutters and more noticeable drops appearing during demanding daytime combat in the city. Digital Foundry stressed that the game is still in development and performance could improve before launch.
The analysis also found some of the image quality issues associated with Unreal Engine 5. Ray tracing noise was visible in some indirectly lit areas, while certain shadow details could take several frames to resolve. Lumen noise was also observed in locations such as car dealerships and railway platforms.
These issues were relatively limited in the preview, while E-Day’s character and environmental assets showed considerable improvements. Digital Foundry highlighted the game’s geometric density, along with enhanced subsurface scattering, skin shading and facial detail.
The Xbox Series S version was not included in the analysis due to embargo restrictions. Chromatic aberration and film grain were also reportedly forced on in the tested Series X build.
Overall, the preview suggests that Gears of War E-Day could become one of the more technically impressive Unreal Engine 5 games. Its combination of Hardware Lumen, Megalights, detailed environments and improved character rendering stands out, although the Performance mode and image quality still appear to need some additional polish.
