Here’s a sentence that shouldn’t make sense: a game you can’t play yet is currently one of the ten best-selling titles on Steam. Not a demo, not early access, the full game doesn’t come out until October. And yet there it is, elbowing its way into the Top Sellers chart on preorders alone.
That game is Gears of War: E-Day, and its early chart run is one of the more interesting things happening on Steam right now. Let’s break down exactly where it’s charting, why an unreleased shooter is out-earning games you can buy today, and whether any of it actually predicts a hit.
Gears of War: E-Day at a Glance
| Detail | Info | |
|---|---|---|
| **Release date** | October 6, 2026 (global) | |
| **Early access** | October 1, 2026 (Premium / Collector’s) | |
| **Price** | $69.99 Standard · $99.99 Premium | |
| **Platforms** | Xbox Series X\ | S, Xbox on PC, Steam |
| **Game Pass** | Day one (Ultimate + PC Game Pass) | |
| **Setting** | 14 years before the original Gears, Emergence Day | |
| **Current status** | Unreleased, yet charting on preorders |
How Is an Unreleased Game Charting on Steam?
Because Steam’s Top Sellers chart ranks by revenue, not release status, and a preorder is revenue. The moment someone pre-purchases E-Day, that $69.99 (or $99.99 for Premium) lands in the same pot Steam uses to rank everything else on the store. The game doesn’t need to be playable to earn money, and Steam’s chart doesn’t care whether it’s out yet.
A few things stack on top of each other here:
- Preorders count immediately. Every pre-purchase feeds the revenue ranking the day it happens.
- The price is high. At $69.99–$99.99 a copy, each preorder carries far more chart weight than a $5–15 impulse buy.
- The beta lit the fuse. E-Day’s chart climb tracks almost exactly with its open beta early-access window going live in early August, hands-on buzz converted straight into preorders.
This is the same revenue-chart quirk that let Valve’s own Steam Machine park itself near the top of the store despite costing over a grand. Steam ranks money, not units, so anything expensive and in-demand gets a natural boost.
Just How High Did E-Day Climb?
Into the top 10 globally, and higher if you filter out the noise. According to SteamDB’s global best-sellers list (reported by Tech4Gamers in early August), E-Day sat at roughly #10 overall. Strip out the free-to-play titles and Valve’s Steam Machine hardware, and it climbs to about the 6th best-selling paid game on the entire platform.
Here’s the context that makes that number land:
Steam Top Sellers, where E-Day fits (early August 2026)
All products ............... #10 ██████████
Paid games only ............ #6 ██████████████ ← excludes F2P + hardware
Weeks until it releases .... 8 ████████████████████Read that top to bottom: the further down you go, the more impressive it gets. A brand-new IP scraping into the top 10 would be notable. A legacy franchise doing it two months early, at full AAA price, while a live beta is running is a genuinely strong signal for Xbox and developer The Coalition. The bump lines up with mostly positive early beta impressions, which is exactly the reaction you want before a launch, not after.
It’s also worth remembering how thin the air is up there. The paid games E-Day is muscling past are live, playable titles with active player bases and constant word of mouth, an unreleased game has none of that working for it, only preorder confidence. Beating that competition sight-unseen is arguably harder than climbing the chart after launch, when reviews and streams do the selling for you.
One honest caveat before anyone frames this as a record: chart *position* is public, but the underlying revenue and unit numbers are not. Valve doesn’t publish them, so “top 10” tells you the game is selling well relative to its neighbors, it doesn’t tell you how many copies moved.
Why Preorder a Game That’s Free on Game Pass Day One?
This is the part that makes E-Day’s chart run genuinely surprising. It hits PC Game Pass and Game Pass Ultimate on day one, which normally *depresses* preorders, why pay $70 when a $15 subscription gets you in on launch day? Yet it’s charting anyway. A few reasons that gap exists:
- Not everyone subscribes. Plenty of PC players don’t keep an active Game Pass and would rather own the game outright on Steam.
- Owning vs. renting. A Steam purchase stays in your library forever; a Game Pass title can rotate out.
- Early access is paid-only for the campaign. Premium and Collector’s buyers get up to five days early (October 1), which Game Pass doesn’t grant.
- Preorder bonuses. Ordering before launch unlocks the Exfil Dom Legendary skin and a three-weapon Exfil skin set, plus early beta access.
- Franchise loyalty. Gears fans have waited years for a new mainline entry, and some just want it on their platform of choice at midnight.
The takeaway: Game Pass and strong preorders aren’t mutually exclusive. E-Day is proving a big Xbox exclusive can chart on Steam *and* headline a subscription service at the same time, which is precisely why Microsoft keeps putting first-party games on Steam in the first place.
Does Charting Early Actually Predict a Hit?
Not by itself, and there’s a recent Gears cautionary tale to prove it. Preorder charts measure hype and dollars, not staying power, and the franchise already has a fresh example of the gap between “charted” and “succeeded.”
Earlier this year, Gears of War: Reloaded (the remaster of the 2006 original) became the first Gears game on Steam. It launched at a friendly $40 with modern features, and by third-party estimates it sold only around 50,000 copies on Steam, drawing mixed reviews. Yet the game reportedly crossed 1,000,000+ players across platforms, largely because it was on Game Pass day one and hit PlayStation 5 simultaneously.
Gears of War: Reloaded, the "charts lie about units" problem
Total players (all platforms) ████████████████████ 1,000,000+
Est. Steam copies sold █ ~50,000 (third-party estimate)That single chart is the whole warning. Player counts, chart positions, and actual Steam sales can point in wildly different directions once Game Pass enters the math. E-Day’s preorder placement is a great early sign, but keep these caveats in view:
- Revenue rank ≠ units sold. A high position can come from fewer, pricier purchases.
- Preorder spikes fade. Charts weight recent activity heavily, so a beta-driven surge cools once the beta ends.
- Game Pass hides the real number. A big chunk of E-Day’s eventual audience will never appear on Steam’s sales chart at all.
- Reviews still decide legacy. Reloaded charted and still landed with a shrug. Hype opens the door; the campaign has to walk through it.
Why a Card Site Cares About a Gears of War Chart Run
Because the line between “video game” and “collectible” keeps thinning, and E-Day is a textbook case of a franchise moment worth watching. The same crossover energy driving the broader wave of video game trading cards is what turns a shooter’s launch window into a genuine cultural event, the merch, the sets, and the collector interest tend to follow the games that break through.
We’ve seen it happen before. A blockbuster shooter earning a licensed set is exactly how Borderlands ended up with its own Upper Deck legacy collection, a big gaming brand crossing straight into cardboard. A Gears property posting numbers like this, this early, is the kind of momentum that gets a franchise on collectors’ radars.
There’s also a shared mechanic worth understanding no matter what you collect: Steam’s revenue-ranked chart is the same quirk that lets a cheap oddity like Trading Card Inspector punch above its weight as a $7 Steam hit. Once you grasp that the chart measures dollars rather than players, “how is *that* trending?” stops being a mystery, whether “that” is a $7 curiosity or an unreleased $70 AAA game.
Final Thoughts
My honest take: E-Day’s early chart run is impressive and a little misleading at the same time, and both can be true. Impressive, because a full-priced, unreleased shooter cracking Steam’s top 10 while it’s also free-with-subscription on day one is a real vote of confidence in the franchise. Misleading, because a revenue chart flatters preorders and completely ignores the Game Pass crowd that will make up much of the actual player base.
If you follow this stuff, the useful skill isn’t memorizing where E-Day sits this week, that’ll shift the moment the beta ends. It’s understanding *why* it’s up there: dollars in, not players counted. Learn to read the chart that way and you’ll never be fooled by a “shocking chart-topper” headline again, whether it’s a legacy shooter or a $7 novelty. As for E-Day itself, the hype is clearly real, now the campaign just has to be worth it.
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Gears of War: E-Day really a top seller before it’s out?
Yes, with a caveat. It reached Steam’s top 10 global best-sellers on preorders, and roughly 6th among paid games once you exclude free-to-play titles and the Steam Machine. But “best-seller” here means revenue rank, not confirmed copies sold, Valve doesn’t publish the actual numbers.
When does Gears of War: E-Day release and how much is it?
E-Day launches globally on October 6, 2026, with Premium and Collector’s Edition buyers getting up to five days of early access starting October 1. The Standard edition is $69.99 and the Premium edition is $99.99, on Xbox Series X|S, Xbox on PC, and Steam.
If it’s on Game Pass day one, why are people preordering?
Because Game Pass doesn’t cover everyone or everything. PC players without a subscription, buyers who want the game permanently in their Steam library, fans chasing the paid campaign early access, and anyone after the preorder skins all have reasons to buy outright rather than wait for the sub.
Does topping the preorder chart mean E-Day will be a hit?
Not necessarily. Gears of War: Reloaded charted and still sold an estimated ~50,000 copies on Steam despite passing a million players overall, mostly through Game Pass and PS5. Early chart position signals hype and demand, not final sales or long-term reception.
Is Gears of War: E-Day coming to PlayStation 5?
No. E-Day is an Xbox-and-PC launch, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox on PC, and Steam, with Xbox Play Anywhere support so one eligible Microsoft purchase covers both Xbox and PC. There is no announced PS5 version.
Current listing: Gears of War: E-Day on Steam.