Four classes in order
One gadget each, and the gap between first and last is wider than any other choice you make in the mode.
I like Horde Siege a lot, which is exactly why this exists. There is a difference between a mode that is great for a weekend and one people are still loading up in six months, and I am not certain E-Day has the second one. Ranking first, concerns after.
Medic revives the whole squad at once
Stim revives every downed teammate at once. Not the nearest one. Not one at a time. All of them.
That undoes the failure state of the mode. A squad wipe is what Horde is built around avoiding, and one class has a button that reverses it at no cost. Whatever else gets adjusted, this is the one.
Marksman stops growing at level 9
Comfortably second. Criticals at range, and the Longshot with Detonator Ammo and a Sniper Scope is a good way to spend a wave. The Breechshot build works too.
The reservation is progression. The class stops developing meaningfully around level 9, well before you stop playing it.
Assault is fine and forgettable
Prototype Lancer executions and the Ripper are good fun, and the class is not weak. It just has neither Medic’s mode-warping button nor Marksman’s clean damage identity.
The Gnasher is why Breacher is last
The grind to level 9 is brutal. You spend a long time playing an underpowered version of the class before it starts working.
And the Gnasher is the weakest weapon in the mode. It fires at 60 rounds a minute, a full second between shots. The game gives its damage per pellet rather than per shell, so there is no damage-a-shot figure for it and nobody can tell you how many shells a kill takes. The Full Auto mod closes the gap to 0.60s. Needing one specific mod to make your class weapon work is a bad place to start.
Medic
One class carries a button that reverses a squad wipe. Nothing else in Horde Siege comes close.
The concerns matter more than the ranking
Weapon mods don’t replace skill cards
Skill cards, the build system in Gears 5’s Horde mode, built an identity across a season. Weapon mods build a gun across a match. What is on offer is thin next to what the cards did for expression.
Team play feels soulless
A full lobby still plays like four people doing separate jobs near each other. Nothing asks for interdependence. The mode needs something that demands coordination, not co-location.
The perk system needs a rework
And the Weapon Parts economy hands you too much, too fast. Scarcity is what makes a Horde run tense. Right now the taps are open.
And then it stops
Each class runs to level 30. You hit it and there is no leaderboard, no ranked ladder for Horde Siege, no reward chase.
Every Horde mode that lasted had something underneath it: a challenge ladder, a record other people could see, a reason to come back on a Tuesday night in January. E-Day has not shown me that yet.
Classic Horde isn’t on offer
Objectives inside waves is an improvement on sitting behind a Fabricator (the machine that built your defenses in Gears 5 Horde). It is also a different mode from the one a large part of the audience has played for fifteen years, and that one is not here.
Fun is solved. Staying power isn’t.
The class fantasy is good, the objectives pull you out of your hole, and the shooting is the best Gears has felt in years. The worry is structural, not mechanical.
The class-by-class version, with gameplay on Golden Quarter, is on YouTube: Every Horde Siege Class Ranked.