open looking for group when pre load goes up

And if they allow pre-loading, the servers will be jammed when that floodgate is opened too...

As others have mentioned, it looks like it's more of an issue of your NAT type then it being the game itself. Hopefully your university's IT group will be able to help. I know when I was in college, our IT would have us send them an email with a
few details (I know MAC was one of them) about our consoles and they were able to get it working with an open NAT type on the network.

My NAT is open. That's not an issue. It's sometimes when the game loads suddenly my NAT goes from open to strict. It only happens with this game.

ran into another problem I need to try a offline update but when I click on the thing I have to download it goes to open up a new tab but doesn't actually load anything

Did you pre-order the game? You can only download early if you have already pre-ordered it or do so now. This game is not available just because you have ultimate or game pass.

I have Game Pass Ultimate, and I was able to download the game when the pre-load when live.

"If you preordered Gears 5 or are an
Xbox Game Pass subscriber, you can preload the game starting today. Just head over to the Microsoft Store in your browser and open Gears 5. You should see the option to "Install/play." While it's impossible to play it as of now, you can pre-load it by clicking
on the "..." next to the button and installing it to your console of choice."

https://www.windowscentral.com/gears-5-pre-load-goes-live-early-access-moved-september-5

I think it looks good, got my pre-order locked and loaded. Plus in Australia we can win a Toyota 86 when you pre-order it!