Gears of War: E-Day Beta Showcases 60fps UE5 Visuals Ahead of October 6 Launch

3 articles · Updated · digitalfoundry.net · Aug 11

Gears of War: E-Day’s beta gives the clearest look yet at The Coalition’s October 6 release, with Xbox Series X targeting 60fps while deploying UE5 features including Nanite, hardware Lumen and MegaLights.
60fps comes with trade-offs: puddle reflections omit some animated foliage and transparent-surface specular effects, while the game’s dusty art direction helps mask the need for constant glossy ray-traced reflections.
Series X performance mode holds a mostly steady 60fps in versus matches but can dip into the 50s in horde mode; balanced runs at 40fps and quality at 30fps, with subtle visual gains over performance.
Series S cuts internal resolution to about 576p in performance and balanced modes and roughly 720p in quality, replacing some ray-traced effects with screen-space reflections while broadly matching Series X frame-rate behavior.
The beta also shows less environmental destruction than earlier single-player footage, suggesting the biggest set-piece damage may be reserved for the campaign even as the multiplayer build positions E-Day as a strong console UE5 showcase.