Gears of War: E-Day on PC will block cards without ray tracing
Some PCs will not run Gears of War: E-Day at all. The game launches on October 6, 2026 for Xbox Series X|S and PC, and it will be available day one on Xbox Game Pass GameSpot. On PC, you will need a graphics card with dedicated ray-tracing hardware, the specialised chips that draw more lifelike light and shadows.
That is a hard cut-off. The minimum threshold is an Nvidia GeForce RTX 2060. No card without ray-tracing support will start the game.
The minimum spec targets 1080p at 60 frames per second on the Medium preset. Listed cards are the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5050, RTX 2060, AMD Radeon RX 6600 and Radeon RX 9060. Listed processors are the AMD Ryzen 5 2600X, Intel i7-6850K and i5-10400.
Step up. The recommended spec targets 1440p at 60 frames per second on High. It names the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060, RTX 3060 Ti, AMD Radeon RX 6700 XT and Radeon RX 9060 XT.
The ultra spec targets 4K at 60 frames per second on Ultra. It lists the Nvidia GeForce RTX 5070 Ti and AMD Radeon RX 7900 XT. All versions require 115GB of storage on a solid-state drive, the faster type of storage now standard in consoles and gaming PCs.
E-Day also supports three upscaling tools on PC: Nvidia DLSS 4.5, AMD FSR 4 and Intel XeSS 3.0T. They boost frame rates by rendering at a lower internal resolution, then sharpening the image. A built-in benchmark tool lets players test their system before playing.
The story goes back to the start. E-Day is set 14 years before the original Gears of War and chronicles the first encounter between humans on Sera and the Locust.
There are several ways to play. The PC version will be available on Steam. It supports Xbox Play Anywhere, which means one purchase covers both Xbox and PC with shared progress, and it will be available via cloud Xbox Wire.
A Collector's Edition will also be available. Xbox has teamed with Gibson for a custom guitar collection tied to the game Xbox Wire.
For players, this means check your PC now. If your card predates ray tracing, Game Pass on console or cloud is the simpler path in.
