Gears of War E-Day May Be One of its Kind in an Unexpected…

The Gears of War franchise is seemingly revving up for a modern resurgence after a five-year-long absence due to the upcoming release of Gears of War: Reloaded and Gears of War: E-Day. Both games will have players returning to the early years of the Gears of War franchise, with Reloaded being a remaster of Gears of War 1 and Gears of War: E-Day bringing gamers to the earliest days of the 17-year-long Locust War. While Reloaded will soon launch as the first Gears game available on PlayStation consoles in August, E-Day may stand out compared to Reloaded and its predecessors in one significant way. E-Day may be the first Gears of War game to cost $80 at its base price.

Gears of War May Want to Take a Detour on the Road to Gears 6 After E-Day

The Coalition could make a successor to a five-year-old Gears of War spin-off before working on Gears 6 following Gears of War: E-Day's release.

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By Eric Warner

Xbox’s Recent Price Hike Explained

For practically the entirety of the Ninth Console Generation, Xbox has consistently been the lowest selling platform in terms of hardware, accessories, and physical games compared to the Nintendo Switch and PlayStation 5. This is despite the digital-only Xbox Series S only costing $300, while the Digital Edition of the PS5 costs $400 and the base Nintendo Switch console costs $300. In contrast, the base Xbox Series X costs $500, while the base PS5 costs $500, the PS5 Pro costs $700, the Nintendo Switch Lite costs $200, and the Nintendo Switch OLED costs $350. According to VGChartz, Microsoft has only sold approximately 33 million Xbox Series X|S consoles, while Sony has sold 75 million PS5 consoles and Nintendo has sold 150 million Nintendo Switch consoles throughout each consoles’ active market lifespan.

Seemingly in response to these poor hardware sales, inflation, upcoming United States tariffs, as well as the Nintendo Switch 2’s base $450 price and select games costing $80, Xbox announced on May 1st that they will be increasing the price of Xbox Series X|S consoles, accessories, and first-party games. For example, the base Xbox Series S will now cost $380 instead of $300, while the base Xbox Series X will cost $600 instead of $500. AAA first-party games will begin to cost $80 instead of the traditional $60 or occasional $70 starting in 2025’s holiday season. This means that AAA Xbox-exclusive games and ones developed under Xbox Game Studios such as Playground Games’ upcoming Fable will now have a base price of $80.

No AAA first-party Xbox game has officially been listed with a base $80 price tag yet as of the writing of this article.

How Gears of War: E-Day May be Affected by Xbox Price Hikes

Throughout the history of Gears of War games, each title has ranged from $40-$60 at launch, with various exceptions for collector’s editions, limited editions, and limited-edition console bundles. Gears of War: Reloaded will launch at $40 in August, but unless Xbox or The Coalition announces that Gears of War: E-Day will debut before December, it’s highly likely that E-Day will launch with a base $80 price due to The Coalition being a part of Xbox Game Studios. It’s currently unknown if E-Day will launch on both Xbox and PlayStation platforms, but the $80 price tag could slow down initial sales as most customers are often hesitant to pay around $100 for a single video game.

Releasing Gears of War: E-Day on Xbox, PS5, and PC platforms simultaneously could help the game increase sales overall, but the $80 cost could limit the series’ growth if it’s unable to break even or reach Microsoft’s expected sales numbers. The $80 price may additionally increase the cost of E-Day’s deluxe, limited, collectors, or console editions, with a deluxe edition possibly going for $100, a limited edition going for $120, a collector’s edition for over $200, and a potential E-Day-themed console going for $700. Since Gears of War 3, each mainline Gears game has been released with a themed Xbox console, but E-Day could be the first to break that trend given the lack of special-themed Xbox Series X|S consoles produced over the consoles' lifespan.

How E-Day’s $80 Price Tag Could Impact Its Multiplayer

With hardware costs expected to increase worldwide following the implementation of tariffs and counter tariffs, Microsoft may force The Coalition to implement more microtransactions into Gears of War: E-Day multiplayer to better increase profits. Gears of War is no stranger to cosmetic microtransactions, but The Coalition may be forced to further divide cosmetic options in player skins akin to Halo armor or restrict certain skins to stores to increase profits. Xbox could further make Gears of War: E-Day’s multiplayer free-to-play but keep its campaign at $80, similar to Halo Infinite, as a way to ensure E-Day has a somewhat stable playerbase at launch and to make microtransaction sales if players hold off on purchasing the campaign.