Gears of War: E-Day Series S performance and the SSD trick
Gears of War: E-Day hits Series S today using its SSD as extra memory. What The Coalition says it cut, what tests found, and the Steam record.
Source-based. Written from the documents, reporting and reviews linked in the text. Nothing here was tested hands-on by The Ruling Desk. How we work
Gears of War: E-Day launches for everyone today, October 6, and the question for Xbox Series S owners is how well it runs on the cheaper console. The Coalition's answer is a memory trick: the game borrows a couple of gigabytes of the Series S's SSD to act as about 1 GB of extra memory, and Digital Foundry reports the only major feature cut for 60 frames per second was Lumen reflections. Digital Foundry's measurements add the fine print, and early access already set a Steam record for the series.
Key takeaways
- Gears of War: E-Day is out today at 8:00 a.m. PT (15:00 UTC) on Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC and Steam, and day one in Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass, according to Xbox.
- On Series S, The Coalition uses part of the console's SSD as a slower extra memory tier. The studio says a couple of gigabytes of drive space buys about 1 GB of usable memory.
- Digital Foundry's report on the interview says Lumen reflections were the only major feature cut on Series S to hold 60fps. Digital Foundry's pre-launch tests found more trims, lower resolution and stutter in the open city areas.
- During early access, the game peaked at 20,374 concurrent players on Steam, according to SteamDB figures, about double Gears 5's 10,196. That counts Steam only.
What changed: E-Day is out on Xbox, PC and Game Pass
Xbox Wire's launch post sets the worldwide launch for today at 8:00 a.m. PT (15:00 UTC), on Xbox Series X|S, Windows PC and Steam, with cloud play through Game Pass Ultimate and GeForce NOW. Premium Edition owners have been playing since October 1.
If you subscribe, you don't need to buy it. An earlier Xbox Wire post confirms the game is included day one with Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass, and that members can play from October 6. If you'd rather own it, the Standard Edition is US$69.99 on Steam's US store as of October 6, 2026.
Critics already weighed in during early access; our Gears of War: E-Day review roundup has the scores and where reviewers split.
How Gears of War: E-Day runs on Series S
The Series S has 10 GB of shared memory, against 16 GB on the Series X. For a game this dense, that was the hard limit. In an interview with Digital Foundry, The Coalition's technical director, Kate Rayner, explained how the studio got around it.
Here's the idea in plain terms. A console keeps what the game needs right now in fast memory (RAM) and everything else on the much slower SSD. The Gears of War: E-Day Series S build, using a system made with Xbox's platform team and its Advanced Technology Group, treats part of the Xbox Series S SSD as an extra memory tier:
- It watches which data the game touches. Data that sits unused for a frame, or for a run of frames, becomes a candidate to move to the SSD.
- Data the game uses often stays in RAM.
- When parked data is needed again, the fast NVMe drive brings it back, ideally before you notice.
Digital Foundry compares it to the paged virtual memory computers use, with one difference: it only covers data the team picked because it can survive the slower trip back. The payoff, by the studio's account, is that a couple of gigabytes on the SSD add about 1 GB of usable memory.
Why bother? Digital Foundry reports the game's world holds around 1.6 million actors (the objects and characters the engine tracks), and the developers say that density wouldn't have been possible on Series S without the technique. According to VGC's write-up of the interview, Rayner said it let the team avoid "really lowering the quality of the game."
It isn't free. Rayner cautioned that moving data back and forth has a cost, so swapping too often hurts performance. This is a system inside one game, not a console update: your Series S doesn't gain memory for anything else.
What was cut on Series S
Digital Foundry's interview piece says that, with the SSD system in place, only one major feature had to go on Series S to hold a reasonable 60fps lock: Lumen reflections, Unreal Engine 5's real-time reflection system.
Digital Foundry's Series X|S tech review, recorded before the day-one patch, measured a wider set of compromises. As Twisted Voxel summarizes it:
| Series S mode | Target | Average internal resolution |
|---|---|---|
| Performance | 60fps | about 576p |
| Balanced | 40fps (120Hz displays) | about 648p |
| Quality | 30fps | about 792p |
Unreal's upscaler reconstructs a sharper final image from those resolutions. In Performance mode, the review also found lower-quality MegaLights (the game's ray-traced lighting), no lighting from muzzle flashes, and reduced global illumination and foliage. It reported frequent drops and stutters in the larger open areas, with some frame-time spikes above 100 milliseconds, while enclosed areas held up better. A 120Hz TV with VRR makes the dips less visible.
So both things are true. The SSD trick kept the game's world intact on Series S, and the console still gives up image quality and some smoothness. Those tests came before the day-one patch, so the performance picture of the Gears of War: E-Day Series S version could still change.
Why it matters beyond Gears
Memory has long been the Series S's sorest point for developers, and Rayner told Digital Foundry that other game teams are already interested in the technique. No other game has announced it, so for now it's a promising blueprint, not a fix you'll see everywhere.
The Steam record
Early access sent a strong PC signal. According to SteamDB figures reported by Insider Gaming, E-Day peaked at 20,374 concurrent Steam players on the first day of early access, roughly double Gears 5's previous high of 10,196. That leaves out everyone on Xbox consoles, the Xbox app on PC and Game Pass, who should be most of the audience from today. It's a busy launch day on Xbox, too: Star Wars: Galactic Racer is also out today.
Bottom line
If you have Game Pass Ultimate or PC Game Pass, E-Day is included from today, and on Series S it's playable at 60fps thanks to a memory trick The Coalition says saved the game's density. Expect a softer image than on Series X, and, going by Digital Foundry's pre-patch tests, some stutter in the big open areas. In those tests, Balanced mode on a 120Hz display was more predictable in smaller areas. Watch for a retest after the day-one patch and for the first other Xbox game to use the SSD technique.
FAQ
Does Gears of War: E-Day run at 60fps on Xbox Series S?
It has a 60fps Performance mode on Series S. Lumen reflections were cut to hold that target, according to Digital Foundry's interview with the studio, and Digital Foundry's pre-launch tests found it at about 576p with drops and stutter in the larger open areas.
Is Gears of War: E-Day on Game Pass?
Yes. Xbox says it's included day one with Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass, playable from October 6, 2026, at 8:00 a.m. PT (15:00 UTC).
Does the SSD trick give my Xbox Series S more RAM?
No. It's a system built into Gears of War: E-Day, which parks rarely used data on the SSD so the game can use about 1 GB more memory. Other games don't benefit unless their developers build something similar.