Storm Clouds, the third chapter of Act 5 in Gears of War: E-Day, lasts roughly eight minutes, making it the act’s shortest chapter. Throughout, you operate the gun mounted beside the King Raven’s side door. Gill pilots while you aim and fire as the squad travels to Raven’s Nest at the dry-dock. You don’t walk, switch weapons, gather items, or find pickups.
Quick answer: Use brief bursts with the door gun to keep its heat from maxing out, prioritize the closest threat to the Raven, and wait for the chapter to conclude automatically after the landing pad is safe.
How the King Raven door gun works
You look out from behind a heavy gun fixed in place, with a circular bracket-shaped reticle centered on the screen. In the upper-right weapon display, the gun’s silhouette appears above a bar, with no ammunition count shown. The bar tracks heat: firing makes red fill it from the left, while pausing lets it fall.
The gun has unlimited ammunition; heat is the only resource to watch. Fire at a target for a few seconds, ease off as the bar rises, and choose your next target while it cools. If you keep the trigger down for a whole wave, the gun may be unusable just as another enemy reaches the Raven.
The Raven’s damage is shown much like Marcus’s when he is on foot. Red marks creep around the edges of the screen, followed by a large red cog flashing across the reticle to signal hits on the helicopter. Your sole way to defend it is to eliminate the closest threat.
When the Raven banks, its body and open doorway can obstruct your aim. Let the turn end before shooting so you do not waste fire on the door frame.
Working through the four flight phases
The chapter breaks into four phases, each with its own HUD line: “Eliminate the Reavers”, then “Protect your Raven”, then “Eliminate the Locust”, and finally the sub-objective “Clear the landing zone”. They run in that order.
The flight in over the burning city
You begin at a checkpoint, already on the gun. During the opening minute, the Raven passes over the burning city without any targets to shoot. Marcus asks Gill to pass Captain Grey a message about a convoy waiting at Port Farrall, and Gill agrees. While the skies are quiet, try the gun on rooftops to gauge how quickly its heat rises and falls.
A short cutscene drops the Raven low over a bridge, where Manu and Mako get off to raise it. The Raven then climbs away and a checkpoint lands.
“Eliminate the Reavers” between the towers
Reavers approach through gaps between the towers, coming from below and behind or directly across the doorway. They shoot while closing in, and one flying alongside the Raven can fill your view. As soon as a Reaver enters the reticle, fire and keep at it until it explodes in midair.
The enemies arrive faster than you can eliminate them, and that’s by design. Roughly a minute in, Gill starts a steep climb beside a skyscraper, hoping the cloud will shake the pursuers. Keep shooting down at the enemies behind you. A checkpoint activates as the Raven enters the cloud, and the objective line is crossed out.
“Protect your Raven” inside the storm
Visibility inside the storm is nearly zero beyond the grey clouds, rain, and gun. Reavers suddenly appear close by, with the squad’s calls as your only warning. The Raven sustains most of its damage in this stretch, and the red cog flashes several times.
Avoid scanning back and forth for targets. Keep your aim around the center and let the heat bar drain completely whenever nothing is visible; open fire as soon as a shape emerges. Nowhere else in the chapter is it as important to have a cool gun.
After the first attack, the crew searches during a pause lasting around half a minute. The threat has not passed: a longer second wave brings multiple Reavers into view together, so target the nearest one each time. The clouds clear, and the Raven descends over the dry-dock; a checkpoint is recorded as Gill indicates the Raven’s Nest below.
“Eliminate the Locust” over the dry-dock cranes
The Raven makes a low pass along the dry-dock’s crane bridges and gantries. Locust infantry line the walkways and fire up at the door while Michaelson radios that the landing zone is still hot. Rake each walkway from one end to the other as the Raven flies along it. Things on the cranes explode when hit and take nearby Locust with them, so sweeping the length of a bridge does more than picking off single targets.
Next, dark sacs with dangling tentacles rise out of the dock toward the Raven. The squad identifies them as spores. Shoot each before it can reach the helicopter. Their slow movement makes them easy targets, but they float up from multiple directions, and any that get near can damage the Raven. They come in sequence, leaving time to cool the gun between them.
“Clear the landing zone” on the lit pad
The Raven turns toward a circular landing platform, its edge lined with lights at the dock’s perimeter. Locust occupy the platform, along with a Reaver on the pad. Target the Reaver first because it is the largest threat, then sweep around the rim to clear the infantry. Once nothing on the platform is still moving, the screen fades.
What gets the Raven killed
- An overheated gun in the clouds. During the storm, nearly all damage to the Raven is caused by a Reaver appearing while the heat bar is maxed out.
- Chasing a far-off Reaver while another one is right alongside the door.
- Staying on the cranes and ignoring the floating sacs as they rise.
Checkpoints in Storm Clouds
There are five save points during the chapter. Checkpoints occur when you take the gun, after the bridge drop-off, when you enter the cloud, above the dry-dock, and on landing.
| Checkpoint | Where it lands |
|---|---|
| 1 | Taking the gun as control starts |
| 2 | After the bridge drop-off |
| 3 | Entering the cloud |
| 4 | Dropping out above the dry-dock |
| 5 | On landing at the pad |
How the chapter ends and what follows
Clearing the landing zone triggers a checkpoint and a cutscene. The Raven sets down on the wet platform, the squad gets out, and the Raven lifts off again with Gill carrying the message for Captain Grey. You know Storm Clouds is finished when control returns on foot on the landing platform and the next title card, Act 5, Chapter 4: Resolute, appears.
This chapter contains no collectibles. There is no Storm Clouds entry on the War Journal’s Act 5 page, and the gun has no items to collect. You can continue directly into Resolute, the lengthy dry-dock chapter that starts at your landing spot.
