Gears of War: E-Day Hotfix Fixes Crashes and Campaign Bugs but Not Smoke Grenade Exploit

Gears of War: E-Day has received a new patch that improves stability and fixes a range of bugs in the campaign, Horde Siege, and online modes.

Characters could previously freeze in a T-pose when aiming quickly after blind-firing a shotgun from medium-height cover. That bug is now fixed.

On Xbox Cloud Gaming, the game no longer defaults to Quality mode instead of Performance mode. The patch also fixes a sign-in error that affected users whose system date and time were set incorrectly.

The campaign received several fixes for issues that blocked progress. In Act 2, Chapter 4, the camera could detach from the character and get stuck in place when the player turned a corner at a construction site. In Act 3, Chapter 3, the navigation marker could keep pointing at a chasm instead of updating the route. The developers also fixed a train car that got stuck during an optional objective in Act 4, Chapter 4, and corrected the aunt’s dialogue at the start of a mission.

The update also changes Horde Siege. Other squads should no longer interfere with the secondary objective of closing E-Holes. The patch also fixes a bug that could disconnect an entire squad from the server if one player failed to load into the game.

The developers fixed several issues in Versus. In Ranked matches, a game ended one minute after a player disconnected and did not return, even though the intended wait time was two minutes. The patch also fixes additional spots on maps where the bomb in Demolition could become inaccessible after being dropped. In addition, the “Killjoy” ribbon should no longer be awarded for destroying enemy equipment.

Some problems remain unresolved. The team confirmed an exploit in competitive play that lets players see through smoke grenades, and a separate fix is in the works. Enforcement action has also been reported against players who abuse this exploit and other cheating methods, including aimbots.