Bleeding Edge’s Development Was Influenced By It Launching On Game Pass

Bleeding Edge is the newest game from Ninja Theory, and it looks like quite the visual treat. It’s looking to be a good mix of shooting and melee (the latter of which was a challenge to implement for the development team), something very different from the usual live service shooter such as Fortnite and PUBG. It will also launch day and date on Game Pass, something all Microsoft first party games will do from here on out. That part of the release had a big influence on Bleeding Edge as well.

Talking to GamesIndustry, creative director Rahni Tucker broke down aspects of the game’s development. She thinks that being a continuously offered title on Game Pass means you have to think about new players more than if Bleeding Edge were only available in the traditional market, because newbies will potentially be cycling in and out of rotation through it’s lifetime with more frequency.

“There’s a fair bit of focus at the moment on the new player experience,” Tucker said. “Coming to Game Pass changes things a little bit compared to if we were selling the game outright. If people go out and spend a bit of money on a game, it’s probably because it’s in a genre they know and understand so they’re going to have familiarity with things like objective control or class-based characters.”

“But if you’ve come to the game through Game Pass and maybe you don’t know so much about this type of genre, it can be a little harder to get into the game,” she continued. “Maybe they don’t know all of the buttons, maybe they don’t know how the game modes work, so we’re trying to focus on that and make sure there’s a nice ramp for new players coming into the game. They can practice safely in the tutorial and in the Dojo against AI, warm up to the game and start to understand why the team is important and what you can do as an individual. Hopefully they can go into that first game a little bit more prepared.”

Bleeding Edge will release on March 24th for both Xbox One and PC. As mentioned, it will also launch on Game Pass on the same day.