Image: The Coalition & Xbox Game Studios

Every big story in games these days feels tinged with bittersweet confusion. On one hand, a new Gears just dropped–Gears of War: E-Day–prequel to the original meathead cover-shooter series, set during the initial Locust invasion of the surface world. That's good! But it's under Microsoft's banner, and that falls under the BDS boycott. That's bad. But it has a really cool-looking 12-player co-op mode! That's good. But the entire development team behind all of this might not exist in a couple of weeks, due to their parent company's 'restructuring' plans. That's–potentially–really fucking bad news.

And while it's great to see Marcus Fenix and pals once again chainsawing subterranean orcs in half, developers The Coalition are equally worried about cuts. As reported by Eurogamer, anonymous sources within the company fear that they're next on the chopping block, and might get axed just before the time comes for Microsoft to pay completion bonuses, because of course that's the kind of thing Microsoft does. It's a very founded fear, as the game's story director (his work being praised heavily by reviews right now) was booted in the run-up to launch.

Needless to say, despite glowing reviews, the game is also catching flak from the Worst People Online, declaring it 'woke' and compromised by such sinister infiltrators as 'women' and 'minorities'. Quite how this could possibly matter in a wildly unrealistic science-fantasy shooter where people chainsaw (again, repeating it for the peanut gallery) ARMIES OF SUBTERRANEAN ORCS AND THEIR GIANT SPIDER PETS. We truly live in a mind-bogglingly stupid era.

The game looks fantastic, too, and gives us our longest look at the world of Sera before it got exploded like four times over. Buildings are largely intact and have minimal battle damage for once, with the Locust troops erupting from the ground around some very scenic (if dusty and desaturated, as is Gears' whole aesthetic) streets. There are some fun new enemies, including a flying area suppression creature that looks like an evil nutsack, and a couple of new guns, like the Ripper, a cobbled-together Locust heavy machine gun that feeds from two magazines at once.

The most interesting part of the package for me is the Horde Siege mode, expanding on the game's excellent, time-tested horde survival co-op mode. Now the maps are bigger, with multiple objectives needing to be tackled at once, and three full four-player squads in action at once. The teams are usually putting out their own fires but are occasionally called together to deal with big boss fights or other setpiece events. On top of difficulty settings, there's multiple game lengths selectable in this mode, offering standard (~30 mins), short (~15-20) or long-haul missions for those who are up for an hour of spectacular violence.

And of course, it wouldn't be Gears without a bunch of competitive multiplayer modes too, building on that familiar rhythm of hopping between cover, rushing enemy positions and trying to pick off enemies that have been downed before their team can revive them and put one more gun back in the fight.

I hope that whatever happens, Microsoft stop with this mindless destruction of everything they've built. I hope The Coalition gets to continue running and making big dumb meathead shooters about chainsawing subterranean orcs. I hope that they'll get to finish the extremely intriguing story arc that they started with Gears 4 and expanded with Gears 5.

Gears of War: E-Day is out now for £60/$70. There's also a shockingly expensive Premium Edition that no longer offers any kind of head start, and promises a few handfuls of cosmetic goodies delivered over the coming months. I'll pass on that.