Preview: Bleeding Edge

It’s hard to look at Bleeding Edge without immediately drawing comparisons to the likes of Overwatch. Both of them take place in a bright, colourful universe where each playable character is a distinctive misfit with their own lovable personality.

What makes Bleeding Edge stand out is the esteemed studio behind it. Ninja Theory has built a reputation on tight, responsive single-player experiences that focus on impactful melee combat, and it’s that very blueprint that’s been slapped onto Bleeding Edge, albeit with more than a few design liberties. 

Compared to Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice, this couldn’t be further away in terms of tone and execution, but the beating heart still consists of a fast, satisfying combination of movement and combat which feels fantastic. While there’s still a few kinks to work out, Bleeding Edge is an exciting new experiment from the studio.

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Bleeding Edge pits two teams of four players against one another as they seek to complete a handful of objectives across lengthy matches. I sampled two of them. The first involved collecting a bunch of power cells located on the map, taking them to constantly shifting points and cashing them in. The first team to reach a specific number will win, while individual kills also count towards your score. 

The second mode involved holding a point for a long as possible, accruing points as you try desperately to defend it from enemies. Obviously it’s not that simple, with the objective shifting and becoming a hazard in itself with the right environmental cues. For example, hitting a nearby gong will engulf it in flames, pushing any foes away in fear of death. It’s a familiar yet novel spin on established ideas, brought to life thanks to dynamic, unpredictable combat. 

While its modes are nothing new, the way in which you approach them is altered depending on which hero you decide to play as. Split into Tank, Assault and Support classes, the character each player picks is absolutely vital. You’ll need a balanced selection to emerge victorious, supporting one another with vital abilities to take points and survive along enough to make a dent in the scoreboard. 

Bleeding Edge boasts an exceeding amount of variety in its cast of characters, all expressed with bright, colourful and somewhat chaotic visual aesthetics. Nidhoggr is a stereotypical punk rocker, wielding a guitar-shaped axe capable of bashing foes over the head with devastating impact. He can also burst forward in a trail of fire before unleashing a duo of ultimate abilities, one of which stuns adversaries in place with an area-of-effect musical performance. 

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Buttercup is a heavyset tank, wielding makeshift motorcycle limbs and is capable of riding onto objectives at obscene speeds with a brutal set of skills. She can swirl her mace-like weapons in a circle, or create a circular field, slowing down everyone caught within its perimeter. She’s excellent at forcing the opposing team off objectives or slowing them down at the perfect moment. She doesn’t deal an obscene amount of damage, but is great at keeping foes busy while others focus on bolstering your score. 

While the majority of heroes are melee-focused, some possess ranged attacks and healing abilities so they can support allies from a distance. Gizmo is a hybrid of sorts. This young Australian girl fires upon foes with an oversized bolt gun, before activating her ultimate and transforming into a giant mech. With this, she marches into the field of battle wiping out everything in her path. There’s a synergy to many of the characters which feels brilliant, especially once a well formulated strategy comes together. 

Maps are surprisingly large, although Ninja Theory has tackled this by providing each player with a mountable board for traversing each environment. These gnarly means of transportation are fluid to control and can be customised to your liking with epic designs and beautiful trails ranging from rainbows to endless streams of bank notes.

The tongue-in-cheek nature of Bleeding Edge is prevalent through everything it does, and it’s easy to fall for. It’s a shame that matches can sometimes feel a bit too long, although it will be easy for Ninja Theory to adjust ahead of release.

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Bleeding Edge has an energy I can see players gravitating towards, bolstered further by a seemingly robust progression system, including unlockable cards which improve certain facets of each character’s arsenal. You can equip three at any one moment, switching between loadouts which might work better for specific game modes.

Their effects might seem minimal, adding small percentage boosts to overall damage and armour, but when combined in the right way they’re incredibly useful. I can see a system like this really transforming the meta of a hero shooter like this if evolved correctly, allowing players to find their own favourites after a few hours play. Updates with news mods would be a great way to keep things fresh too.

Each hero will have a bunch of unlockable emotes and skins, although I didn’t see any of the latter during my time with the game. The nature of Bleeding Edge as a living, breathing multiplayer experience will determine whether it floats or sinks after release, but its identity as an Xbox Game Pass title gives it an automatic advantage. I’m keen to see how the community takes to it, since there’s so much potential here.

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Bleeding Edge – First Impressions

Bleeding Edge is a lot of fun and it’s exciting to see Ninja Theory branch out into something more experimental and light-hearted after Hellblade. Varied and satisfying combat mechanics combine with a compelling cast of heroes to create something that honestly stands a chance of rising above the competition.

A few teething issues remain with its pacing and overall execution, but there’s a tantalising core here that really shines, Ninja Theory just needs to keep chipping away until its charming potential is clear to all. On a platform seemingly devoid of first-party experiences at the moment, Microsoft could be onto something with this one.

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