Gears of War: E-Day has gone gold, putting The Coalition’s next Gears release on track for its October launch while the studio locks in pre-install timing and final PC requirements.
The Coalition says pre-install begins September 29 at 8am Pacific, or 15:00 UTC, across Xbox Series X|S, Xbox on PC and Steam. Premium Edition owners can enter early access on October 1 at the same time, while the worldwide launch follows on October 6. Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass members join at the worldwide launch rather than the Premium early-access date.
Going gold locks in the launch milestone
“Gone gold” means the release build has reached the milestone used to prepare the game for manufacturing and distribution. It does not mean development stops completely: launch updates and post-release patches can still follow. For players, the practical point is that E-Day’s published October schedule now has a major production milestone behind it.
The pre-install window is especially useful because the PC version requires 115GB of SSD space. PC Gamer’s breakdown of the final requirements also notes that every published graphics tier assumes an upscaling option and requires a GPU with hardware ray tracing support.
At the minimum tier, The Coalition lists 1080p at 60fps on the Medium preset with upscaling, using cards such as the GeForce RTX 2060 or Radeon RX 6600. Recommended hardware moves to a 1440p, 60fps-plus target, while the Ultra tier targets 4K at 60fps-plus with hardware including an RTX 5070 Ti or Radeon RX 7900 XT. Those are target configurations rather than promises for every machine.
Game Pass players launch on October 6
The timing is easy to misread because there are two playable dates. October 1 is the Premium Edition early-access window. October 6 is the worldwide launch and the date The Coalition gives for Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass access.
E-Day is launching on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox on PC and Steam. The September 29 pre-install is available across those platforms, giving players time to deal with the 115GB storage requirement before either access window opens.
The PC specification sheet also confirms support for DLSS 4.5, FSR 4 and XeSS 3.0 at launch, alongside ray-traced effects. That makes the hardware-ray-tracing requirement more than a single premium preset feature: it is part of the baseline GPU support The Coalition is publishing for the game.
The studio has also released the full achievement list, but the more useful launch information is now settled: pre-install on September 29, Premium early access on October 1, worldwide and Game Pass launch on October 6, and final PC targets that make an SSD and ray-tracing-capable graphics card mandatory.
There is still room for launch-day updates before October 6, so “gold” should not be read as a guarantee that no files will change. It does mean The Coalition has crossed the production milestone that normally signals the release schedule is in its final stretch.
The final specification update also narrows a few questions that were still open after the earlier PC requirements appeared in June. Storage has settled at 115GB, the Ultra tier is now defined, and the studio is explicit that hardware ray tracing support is required. That gives PC players enough information to decide whether to preload, upgrade or wait for performance testing before buying.
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