The development of
Bleeding Edge began as a passion project and was built out of inspiration from the original Ninja Theory game
Kung Fu Chaos. Creative director Rahni Tucker stated the reasoning behind this game existing was "At home, I play a lot of team multiplayer games, all the way from MOBAs to team shooters. And then I was like: where is this game? A third-person action competitive team multiplayer. It doesn't really exist, and it sounds like my dream project". Tucker said they came to that shortly after the development of
DmC: Devil May Cry concluded. Tucker pitched the game and at the time nothing came of it but she stated that around halfway for
Hellblade, Ninja Theory approached her on the idea and development went into production. The game began with a development team of ten people and by launch had expanded to 25 developers which were a contrast to the average first party
Xbox Game Studios large teams with hundreds of developers. Lead artist Aaron McElligo stated that the game began with realistic visuals that Ninja Theory had been known for but quickly realized in a game like this that would not work out.
Bleeding Edge was leaked ahead of reveal at
E3 2019. A technical alpha test was announced to begin on 27 June 2019, for those who have signed up via the
Bleeding Edge website. The game was released for
Xbox One and
Windows on 24 March 2020. On 28 January 2021, Ninja Theory ended development on
Bleeding Edge. ==Reception==