The Coalition says Active Reload is an 'iconic feature' that has been updated for Gears of War

The Coalition studio creative director Matt Searcy says Active Reload is an "iconic" part of the Gears of War series

He explains that the team moved the mechanic to the middle of the screen in E-Day because "it feels better"

Searcy adds that players can learn Active Reload "much more easily" when it's placed there

Gears of War: E-Day is set to bring back the series' iconic Active Reload mechanic, but The Coalition has made some design changes.

Speaking in an interview with TechRadar Gaming at Summer Game Fest 2026, studio creative director Matt Searcy discussed new features that have been built with Unreal Engine 5, such as larger environments, like an entire city, a jump button, improved animations, and a rebuilt cover system and traversal mechanics that feel "smoother than they've ever felt before."

"All those cover mechanics are there; they just feel smoother than they've ever felt before," he said, "and then around that we just gave little new ways for you to interact with the environment, for you to traverse, options for you to take new flanking routes, just to open up our maps a little bit more. It's made for some pretty amazing additions to the gameplay, but also the world."

Searcy also touched on Active Reload, a feature almost like a mini-game, which allows players to manually reload their held weapon rather than wait for the magazine to run out of ammo.

In E-Day, the mechanic has been moved from the top of the screen to the middle by default, which Searcy said works better.

"So active reload is a huge part of Gears," Searcy said. "[It's] an iconic feature. We've moved it by default to the middle of the screen. It feels better [from] what we've played; we've tested it as part of your shooting experience."

The creative director confirmed that players can move Active Reload back to its original place at the top of the screen, but notes that there are some extra "cool" details with natural reload and other additional reload mechanics.

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"Every single shell is being reloaded," he said, "so some of the weapons have additional reload mechanics." For example, players can interrupt the reload and keep playing with two or three shells if they're halfway through and then "use them really quick to like get out of danger," or they can wait until the end to get their Active Reload bonus.

He added that players will noticeably use the mechanic "telemetry-wise" and use it way more than they did when it was at the top of the screen "because you can learn it much more easily [when] it's in your face."

Gears of War: E-Day is scheduled to launch on October 6 exclusively for Xbox Series X and Series S.

Matt Searcy told TechRadar Gaming that he believes making the game an Xbox exclusive was the best decision — something not all Xbox Game Studios teams are aligned on.

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Demi is a freelance games journalist who helps cover gaming news at TechRadar. She's been a games writer for five years and has written for outlets such as GameSpot, NME, and GamesRadar, covering news, features, and reviews. Outside of writing, she plays a lot of RPGs and talks far too much about Star Wars on X.