"We would have Buttercup and we would bring in the character that we had made, at various levels of development, say Daemon, keep bringing him in and seeing whether they feel comparative. "The way we test the characters is more like, in Guardians of the Galaxy when they're all in prison, you've got these weird characters all standing next to each other," lead artist Aaron McElligott explained. She was the first fully-realised character and a reference point, not only for the art team but also for future characters.
In this regard, there's one character who stands out in Bleeding Edge, and that's Buttercup a curvy lady who rolls with a rockabilly style and a motorbike that can be used to devastating effect. There's a swagger to the whole thing, which is important when you consider that a key factor of the success of games like this is the quality of the character design. Tucker and her team also pointed to manga such as Akira and Ghost in the Shell, although they have lightened the tone a little since those early days, and we were enthusiastically told about the influence that Tekkonkinkreet has had on the project. The game has a strong artistic streak, with cel-shaded visuals that while vaguely reminiscent of Borderlands have their own retro sci-fi style inspired by '90s pop culture (apparently it was the formative decade for much of the team). During our time at the studio, we talked to sound designers, artists and animators, as well as development leads, discovering more about how the creative process came together. The design journey of this eccentric band of oddball warriors seems storied, but also an intimate process of discovery. Then, when it came time to design them, we really just asked: 'who would do this sort of stuff and what kind of character in the real world might have these abilities?'" "We designed a skill set and didn't know what they looked like. "A lot of the characters started off as white box characters," Poon added. This combat-first approach is, of course, synonymous with Ninja Theory and its trademark style, and it was the plan right from the very start. Each of the characters on the roster in Bleeding Edge has two stances that the player must choose between, focusing the combatant via a specific ultimate ability that they'll be able to call upon once or twice during the course of a match.
Despite this Dota-inspired heritage, the influence that we felt most keenly was that of those fighting games that ride the line between technicality and arcade accessibility, games like Street Fighter and Tekken. With games as diverse as Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice and DMC Devil May Cry in their collective back catalogue, a multiplayer brawler doesn't necessarily feel like a logical next step for the now Microsoft-owned developer, but when we were told more about the influences that have informed this new endeavour, it starts to make more sense.īleeding Edge actually started life as a MOBA, a favourite genre of creative director Rahni Tucker, but the moment-to-moment experience was already intense enough on its own without having towers to tackle and minions to massacre. We got there nice and early, long enough to scan the displays in the foyer and reflect on the breadth of the studio's past output. But Bleeding Edge is not Overwatch with fisticuffs, and it's not a Borderlands brawler either, despite the cel-shaded similarities and its irreverent attitude.Īfter playing the recent closed beta, we had a good feel for the game before we sat down to play it again during a rare trip to a studio that seldom opens its doors to the press. Yet on the face of it, it could be just another hero shooter, the latest in the long line of pretenders that have been iterating on the cartoon stylings of Team Fortress 2. It's an online arena brawler that leans into the trademark combat-focused style of its creators, Ninja Theory, with an emphasis on close-quarters carnage.
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