Gears of War: E-Day Beta Updates Detailed Ahead of Open Weekend

beta, Gears of War: E-Day, The Coalition

Ready to rev those Lancers? The Coalition have detailed some tweaks and changes taking on board feedback from the first weekend of the beta.

The second Gears of War: E-Day beta weekend begins today (Thursday 13 August) at 12PM PT / 3PM EDT / 8PM BST / 9PM CEST. It ends on Monday 17 August, so you’ve got all weekend to gib those grubs!

The second weekend of the beta is an open one so anyone is able to play. Last week’s beta weekend was reserved for gamers who’ve locked in their pre-order in, or for Game Pass Ultimate and PC Game Pass subscribers.

Of course, the entire point of a beta is to give gamers the opportunity to have a go and listen to the feedback from those diving in. Ideally, the developer will hear what is being said and make appropriate changes. Some times betas can run as glorified demos with no real impetus to make changes, but today’s list of updates shows that developers, The Coalition, are listening.

Gears of War: E-Day Open Beta Updates – 12 August 2026

You can view the full list of updates below, but some of the highlights include a boost to the damage of the Prototype Lancer, improved hit detection delays and general stability tweaks.

Prototype Lancer – Increased base damage and reduced perfect reload damage
Hit Detection Delays – Improved hit detection delays players were experiencing in Horde Siege
Anti-cheat protection – Improved anti-cheat protection and took enforcement action against verified cheaters
Drone-Snub Error Code – Implemented mitigations for the drone-snub error code. As part of this change, we have updated our port requirement from UDP 443 to UDP 3074. If you continue to experience this issue, please ensure the required ports are open on your network. For more information, visit Xbox Live Network Ports
Stability – Improved stability and reduced frequency of crashes across all platforms
Connection Timeouts – Implemented mitigations to address connection timeout errors
Matchmaking Improvements– Made further improvements to our Matchmaking system in Versus (Social & Ranked)
Third-Party Controller Support – Improved an issue where some third-party controllers were not recognized upon game launch on Steam
Account Linking – Improved issue where players were not able to link their Microsoft accounts
Xbox Series S – Made further improvements to reduce hitching on Xbox Series S

Don’t forget that there are some exclusive rewards to be had if you play the beta and complete various challenges. These rewards will be available to you when the full game releases on 6 October 2026 for PC and Xbox Series as a console exclusive.

Epic Blast Damage Mags Character Skin – Hit Player Level 20
Rare Crush the Bug Weapon Skin Set – Extract from Horde Siege 8 Times on Infantry difficulty or higher.
Crush the Bug Banner – Get 25 Headshots
Crush the Bug Emblem – Perform 10 Revives
Crush the Bug Icon – Perform 5 Prototype Lancer Chainsaw Executions
Open Beta Medal & First in the Fight Title – Launch the Multiplayer Beta