The Coalition opened the second weekend of the Gears of War: E-Day beta on August 13, and this time pre-order early access is no longer required. Players on Xbox and PC can jump into the open beta from 12 PM PT through August 17 at 10 AM PT, giving a much wider audience the chance to experience the game's multiplayer. Online multiplayer access on Xbox requires a Game Pass subscription that includes online multiplayer.

Ahead of that, the studio pushed out 10 fixes and improvements based on what came out of the first beta weekend. Nothing here is a new build or a new mode. It's the usual post-weekend cleanup: weapon balance, Horde Siege, matchmaking, stability, connectivity, anti-cheat, controller support, account linking, and Xbox Series S performance, basically the list of things that can sour a beta if a studio leaves them alone.

Combat Balance and Horde Siege Get Tuned

The Prototype Lancer picked up the most direct gameplay change of the batch. Its base damage went up, while the bonus damage from landing a perfect reload came down. That's a fairly common way to even out a weapon, pushing players toward consistent output instead of leaning entirely on split-second reload timing to do the heavy lifting.

Horde Siege also got a fix for hit registration delays. In a mode that's all about surviving waves of enemies that keep getting nastier, a shot that doesn't register when it should is more than a minor annoyance. The Coalition says the delays players ran into while landing hits have been addressed for Weekend 2.

Stability, Connectivity, and Matchmaking

The Coalition also says it has reduced crash frequency and improved overall stability across every platform the beta runs on. Players who saw connection timeout errors during Weekend 1 should also see improvements, with additional mitigations aimed at that specific issue.

Versus matchmaking, both Social and Ranked, has also received further improvements. With Weekend 2 now open to a wider audience, the changes should help address matchmaking issues encountered during the first weekend.

One issue got a more detailed fix than the rest. The Drone-Snub error code, which affected some players trying to connect to matches, now has mitigations in place. The Coalition also notes that affected players may need to change a network setting on their end, switching the required port from UDP 443 to UDP 3074. Anyone still running into that error should check the official beta troubleshooting information before assuming the install itself is broken.

Anti-Cheat, Controllers, and Account Linking

Competitive integrity got some attention as well. The Coalition says anti-cheat measures and enforcement against verified cheaters have both improved heading into Weekend 2.

Two smaller but genuinely annoying bugs are also fixed. Some Steam players using third-party controllers were running into problems in Weekend 1, and that's been addressed. So has an issue affecting Microsoft account linking for some players trying to get into the beta in the first place.

Xbox Series S Gets More Performance Work

Xbox Series S owners get another round of fixes aimed at reducing hitching. It's a small line in the patch notes, but it's another example of The Coalition addressing platform-specific performance issues during the beta rather than leaving them for launch.

All 10 Gears of War: E-Day Beta Improvements for Weekend 2

Here's the complete list of changes The Coalition has highlighted ahead of the second beta weekend:

What PC Players Should Check Before Jumping In

There's also a hardware requirement worth repeating for PC players who skipped Weekend 1. The official beta information states that an SSD is required, and running the beta off an HDD can lead to severe loading problems, missing assets, stuttering, and crashes.

PC players should make sure their system meets the official beta requirements before jumping in, particularly if they're planning to spend the weekend testing Horde Siege or Versus.