DULLED

BLEEDING EDGE doesn’t do enough to stand out.

- Morgan Park

While Bleeding Edge may be a 4v4 ‘brawler’, don’t take that to mean that it plays like Ninja Theory’s DmC. Instead, it’s a game of timing, positioning, and cooldown management. But without a complex meta or satisfying combat, it whiffs on the ‘Overwatch-butmelee’ promise. Whereas Blizzard’s shooter ends each match with highlights, I’m yet to see a highlight-worthy feat of skill or teamwork here.

I thought I’d be feeling hero fatigue at this point, but I do really love the backstories of Bleeding Edge’s 11 fighters. Buttercup is a biker who’s basically become a human motorcycle, and Kulev is a 125-yearold professor who achieved immortality by transferring his consciousness to a robotic viper that controls his zombified body. The industrial grunge and absurdity reminds me of Borderlands, but Bleeding Edge thankfully stops short of the cringey humour.