Gears of War: E-Day beta sets new Steam peak for the series

The Gears of War: E-Day multiplayer beta just launched its first stage — and it's already broken every Steam concurrent-player record the series has ever set.

According to SteamDB, the beta hit a 24-hour peak of 14,331 concurrent players, surpassing Gears 5's all-time Steam peak of 10,196, Gears of War: Tactics' peak of 7,351, and Gears of War: Reloaded's 4,819. That number is expected to climb further as the weekend gets underway. Worth noting: the original trilogy and Gears 4 never came to Steam at all, and Gears 5 launched with heavy Microsoft Store and Game Pass availability — Microsoft's own blog called it a record-breaking PC launch that tripled Gears 4's performance — so the raw Steam numbers don't tell the whole story of past releases.

Gears of War: E-Day is a prequel developed by The Coalition, set during the original Emergence Day that kicked off the Locust invasion. The beta currently includes a horde mode and PvP versus — the latter was added just before launch in response to fan demand. This week's access is limited to pre-order holders; a fully open beta with no paywall kicks off next week, which should push the concurrent numbers considerably higher.

The early momentum is a good sign for The Coalition heading into launch. Whether E-Day can hold that interest once the full game ships remains to be seen, but clearing the series' Steam records before the open beta even begins is a strong start.