Review for Bleeding Edge. Game for Xbox One, the video game was released on 24/03/2020
The guys of Ninja Theory they are a bit like the stairs of Hogwarts, you almost know, like to change. Starting with single player action titles from the caliber of Heavenly Sword and DmC: Devil May Cry, they went through the exquisite psychological adventure of Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice, attending for what time virtual reality and Disney Infinity sandboxes.
In the last few days their latest effort has seen the light: Bleeding Edge, a multiplayer online brawler that promises heart-pounding combat between teams of 4 players. Since the announcement at E3 2019, the title has been able to distinguish itself between the miasma of titles presented thanks to a crazy character design and a winking graphic sector at Cel Shading. After having measured ourselves without poses in the bloody arenas, we are ready to dissect with you the peculiarities of the title.
A lean but functional tutorial immediately introduces us to the middle of combat, and the combat mode is the only one currently accessible in the brawler arena of boys Ninja Theory. Starting the only available queue of matchmaking we will find ourselves paired with three teammates and we will be called to quickly select a hero to take into battle in order to triumph in the ways proposed by Bleeding Edge.
In Bleeding Edge, although the modes experience an exquisitely random rotation and you can never select the type of game we prefer to access, the simplicity of the game systems will never make the purpose of the battle difficult or unintuitive. The scenarios vary from a classic multi-zoned conquest, already seen in Guild Wars 2 PvP and similar to the one in Overwatch, up to an atypical CTF (Capture the Flag), which will see us busy collecting fragments on the map to be returned to their base, similarly to Brawl Stars.
Although a competitive mode is totally absent at launch and therefore the purpose of the game is aimed at pure and simple fun, Bleeding Edge manages to give its best when faced with premade, friends willing to work out a team composition via voice chat, provided directly by the game infrastructure as proposing a balanced team is the only key to victory.
The heroes are currently eleven and are divided into three categories: assault, support and tank, and each of these classes offers a great variety of gameplay. Take for example the assault heroes: they range from the melee fighter capable of applying burns and DOT (Damage Over Time) to opponents, passing through the canonical invisible assassin capable of inflicting a large amount of damage during a reduced time window, to culminate with the typical distance wizard.
Damage and HP vary from hero to hero and team combinations are numerous and left entirely to the team's imagination. Unfortunately and as is logical, having a healer on the team is vital in order to triumph in team fights, as well as a tank that operates from the frontline and applies control effects on enemies is a must have. The selection of the character, however, does not offer any restrictions on the number of DPS heroes to take to the field and therefore in the case of a quick match with strangers met on the internet, a good composition is totally entrusted to the common sense of the participants.
This error coincides perfectly with the first experiments of the Overwatch queue, where the possibility of open and unrestricted selection of roles has led more than one user to abandon the title. Error corrected only recently by Blizzard and who has been able to breathe new life into his shooter. Well aware of the fact that this is the first experimentation of Ninja Theory in the sector, we are however strongly amazed by the fact that we have not collected the lessons taught and suffered by our competitors and they offered us a title with decidedly naive mechanics and infrastructures.
From the gameplay side, every hero can count on a kit consisting of a basic attack and 3 activation skills to be spent in relation to cooldowns of various durations, culminating with two supreme abilities, to choose from during character selection. Just like in Overwatch, it will be possible to change the selection of your character based on or during a death and the other, guaranteeing a wide flexibility of strategy for your team.
The combat system, in addition to offering a dodge that thrives on not too long reload times, also offers an impact parry system, able to overturn the results of a fight. Unfortunately, the frame data of the attacks and the melee interaction is really very naive and light years away from proposing a fight deep enough to be interesting. We will entrust the accuracy of our assaults mostly to the management of distances and to a skilful use of cooldowns and the interpretation of the selected character.
The characters themselves level up between matches, offering us customization perks able to marginally affect cooldowns, abilities and secondary effects. Interesting, but not brilliant. Completely different speech regarding aesthetics and related cosmetic elements. Although every single detail of the heroes proposed is a victim of the "already seen" effect, the aesthetic charisma is definitely noteworthy, and together with a never banal sound sector, represents the peak of production.
Bleeding Edge is definitely an interesting attempt by the Ninja Theory guys to experiment in a new industry. Unfortunately, the content offer at launch and the proposed modalities and infrastructures are decidedly naïve, and in a frenetic 2020 full of constantly growing multiplayer titles, the gameplay and the proposed experience cannot in any way stand out. . Bleeding Edge is free as part of the Xbox game pass offer and we can recommend the title exclusively to those who want to take full advantage of the subscription in the company of some friends, for one or two evenings of carefree fun.
► Bleeding Edge is a Shooter type game developed by Ninja Theory and published by Microsoft Studios for Xbox One, the video game was released on 24/03/2020
