Ninja Theory's Bleeding Edge is out right now
The cyborg dolphins and grannies are here
Remember Bleeding Edge? It's that punky 4v4 multiplayer brawler made by none other than Ninja Theory, the creators of Hellblade. It seems like a strange heel turn after Hellblade, and we'll all get to find out just what it's all about today. The cartoony colourful style is appealing to my Overwatch-obsessed brain, so I'm quite looking forward to hopping onto Game Pass to give it a go later.
Bleeding Edge is a third-person shooter/brawler that will have you fighting in an arena in some sort of underground bloodsport. You play as one of its weird and wonderful characters, working together with your team to use your many abilities to get the jump on your enemies.
Judging from the launch trailer it looks like we could be in for a little bit of story as well (for those of us into that sorta thing), talking about this illegal sport and giving a bit of personality to the characters who fight in it. Oh wait, they ended it with the quote: "Why do we fight? Because we like it!" So, maybe that's a "no" to the story then.
The fighters do look pretty cool though, I'll admit. I'm a big fan of the robot dolphin, Mekka, and Brendon was pretty taken by the cyborg-witch granny when he tried Bleeding Edge out at E3 last year (though he wasn't totally convinced the game would stand out amongst its competition):
"It's not exactly a fresh idea to anyone who has played other games of being heroic within an arena, like Battlerite. And that is maybe the one great worry while I play. I'm having a good time being a sneaky nan, definitely, but these games always live or die on their numbers, and I don’t know how I would sell this to my friends apart from emphasising the fun character design. 'Yeah, it's not bad!' I’d say. 'You can be a pink-haired women whose entire lower body is one big wheel. You can be a ninja who dresses like a spraypainting skaterboy. You can ride around on a hoverboard.'"
Bleeding Edge is available right now on Xbox Game Pass for PC , or you can get it on Steam for £25/$30/€30. Check out the patch notes and find out more about those quirky characters over on the Bleeding Edge website.