Gears E-Day Scraps Battle Passes for Old-School Unlocks

"Remember the good ol' days when you bought a game and you could unlock all the customization items just by playing because you already bought the game? Us too!"

That line, buried in the middle of a lengthy blog post from The Coalition today, might be the most refreshing thing a major studio has said about multiplayer monetisation in years. Gears of War: E-Day is launching without a battle pass, without a rotating premium shop, and without the kind of drip-fed FOMO mechanics that have become standard operating procedure for online shooters. Instead, the studio is going back to a system where playing the game is how you unlock things. I know. Revolutionary.

The full quote from the blog post spells it out plainly:

"Nearly every single item in Gears of War: E-Day can be earned by simply playing the game. That means no battle pass, no tour of duty, no gimmicks, no bullshit. Whether it's a Legendary Character Skin, an Epic Weapon Skin Set or a Rare Pose, almost all of it can be earned through gameplay."

Players will earn in-game coins after online matches, through levelling up, and by completing medals pulled from a system inspired by Gears of War 3. The only items locked behind real money are the Premium Edition extras, charity-linked bundles, and collaboration content like a Metallica weapon skin set. Everything else is on the table for anyone who owns the game.

The Brumak in the Room

The Coalition clearly knows what players are thinking, because the blog post directly addresses the elephant in the room by name. Well, the Brumak in the room. The studio explicitly referenced EA's infamous "pride and accomplishment" disaster from Star Wars Battlefront 2 back in 2017, when EA tried to spin a 40-hour grind to unlock Darth Vader as a rewarding player experience. That response remains Reddit's most downvoted comment of all time.

"Earning coins is not intended to be painstaking or provide the player with a sense of pride and accomplishment. Earning Coins shouldn't be an arduous grind. Chasing your favorite skin and unlocking new items should be fun. As such, we've carefully tuned the rate you earn Coins with this principle in-mind and we'll pay close attention to player feedback to adjust as necessary in post-launch."

Namechecking that controversy directly is a bold move, and I respect it. Studios usually dance around comparisons to industry disasters with vague language about "player-first" philosophies. The Coalition just said the quiet part loud: we know what bad looks like, and we're not doing it.

This is the kind of commitment I've been wanting to see from a major first-party release for a long time. Gears 5 had a Tour of Duty system and a premium store that, while not the worst offender, still felt like it was pulling the game toward live-service norms it didn't need. E-Day rolling that back entirely sends a message. When a £60 game from a first-party Microsoft studio ships without a battle pass in 2026, that's not just a design choice; it's a statement about what players should expect from a full-price product.

Now, promises are promises. The proof will be in whether the coin earn rates actually feel reasonable at launch, or whether they're tuned just slowly enough to make you think about reaching for your wallet for those few paid exceptions. The Coalition says they'll adjust based on feedback, which is the right thing to say. I'll be watching the first few weeks closely.

The monetisation reveal came alongside a broader multiplayer deep dive covering E-Day's two main modes. Versus brings back 4v4 PvP with COGs against Locust, classic weapon pickups, and no loadout systems. Horde Siege is the bigger swing: a 12-player co-op mode where three squads of four tackle objectives across massive districts of Kalona City before extracting. Early hands-on impressions from press who played the beta have been positive on Versus but mixed on Horde Siege, with some noting that squads can feel disconnected across the oversized maps.

Gears of War: E-Day launches on PC and Xbox Series X|S on October 6. A multiplayer open beta runs August 6-10 for pre-order customers and Game Pass Ultimate subscribers, then opens to everyone from August 13-17. If The Coalition's earn rates hold up under real player scrutiny, this could be the model other studios should be copying instead of another expiring battle pass.