- Coalition studio creative director Matt Searcy says Active Reload is an “iconic” part of the gears of war series
- He explains that the team moved the mechanic to the center of the screen in E-Day because “it feels better.”
- Searcy adds that players can learn Active Reload “much more easily” when placed there
Gears of War: E-Day It’s set to bring back the series’ iconic active reload mechanic, but The Coalition has made some design changes.
In an interview with TechRadar Gaming at Summer Game Fest 2026, the studio’s creative director Matt Searcy talked about the new features that have been created with Unreal Engine 5, such as larger environments such as an entire city, a jump button, improved animations and a rebuilt cover system and traversal mechanics that feel “smoother than ever before.”
“All those cover mechanics are there; they just feel more fluid than ever,” he said, “and then we just give you new ways to interact with the environment, so you can traverse, options for you to take new flanking routes, just to open up our maps a little bit more. It’s made for some pretty amazing additions to the gameplay, but also to the world.”
Searcy also touched on Active Reload, an almost mini-game feature that allows players to manually reload the weapon they have instead of waiting for the magazine to run out of ammo.
In electronic dayThe mechanic has been moved from the top of the screen to the middle by default, which Searcy says works better.
“So active recharging is a big part of gears“Searcy said.”[It’s] an iconic feature. We have moved it by default to the center of the screen. it feels better [from] what we have played; “We’ve tested it as part of your shooting experience.”
The creative director confirmed that players can move Active Reload back to its original spot at the top of the screen, but notes that there are some “cool” extra touches with natural reload and other additional reload mechanics.
“Each of the shells are reloaded,” he said, “so some of the weapons have additional reloading mechanics.” For example, players can pause the reload and continue playing with two or three shells if they’re halfway through and then “use them really quickly to get out of danger”, or they can wait until the end to get their active reload bonus.
He added that players will noticeably use the mechanic “telemetry-wise” and will use it much more than when it was at the top of the screen “because you can learn it much easier.” [when] It’s in your face.”
Gears of War: E-Day is scheduled to launch on October 6 exclusively for Xbox Series X and Series S.
Matt Searcy told TechRadar Gaming that he believes making the game an Xbox exclusive was the best decision, something that not all teams at Xbox Game Studios are aligned on.
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