The magazine was launched in October 1993 by Steve Jarratt, a long-time video games journalist who has launched several other magazines for Future; in March 2009 the 200th issue was published.

The artwork for the cover of the magazine's 100th issue was specially provided by Shigeru Miyamoto. The 200th issue was released in 200 different covers, each commemorating a single game. 199 variants were in general circulation, and one was exclusive to subscribers. Only 200 magazines were printed with each cover, sufficient to satisfy Edge's circulation of 28,898.

In October 2003 the then-editor of Edge, João Diniz-Sanches, left the magazine along with deputy editor David McCarthy and other staff writers. After the walkout the editorship of Edge passed back to Tony Mott, who had been editor prior to Diniz-Sanches. The only team member to remain was Margaret Robertson, who in 2006 replaced Mott as editor. In May 2007 Robertson stepped down as editor and was replaced by Tony Mott, taking over as editor for the third time.

Between 1995 and 2002, some of the content from the UK edition of Edge was published in the United States as Next Generation. In 2007 Future's U.S. subsidiary, Future US began re-publishing selected recent Edge features on the Next Generation website; the Edge website and blog were subsequently incorporated into the Next-Gen site. In July 2008 the whole site was rebranded under the Edge title, as that was the senior of the two brands.

Each issue includes a "Making-of" article on a particular game, usually including an interview with one of the original developers. Issue 143 introduced the "Time Extend" series of retrospective articles. Like the "making-of" series, each focuses on a single game and, with the benefit of hindsight, gives an in-depth examination of its most interesting or innovative attributes.

"Codeshop" examines more technical subjects such as 3D modelling programs or physics middleware, while "Studio Profile" and "University Profile" are single-page summaries ("like Top Trumps, but for game dev") of particular developers or publishers, and game-related courses at higher education institutions.

Although an overall list of contributors is printed in each issue's indicia, the magazine usually does not use bylines to credit individual writers to specific reviews and articles, instead only referring to the anonymous Edge as a whole. The magazine's regular columnists are exceptions to this practice. The three current columnists are N'Gai Croal, Randy Smith, and Trigger Happy author Steven Poole. In addition, several Japanese writers contribute to the regular "Something About Japan" feature.

Previous columnists have included Paul Rose ("Mr Biffo", the founder of Digitiser), Toshihiro Nagoshi of Sega's Amusement Vision, author Tim Guest (whose column on MMOs preceded the publication of his book Second Lives), and game developer Jeff Minter. In addition, numerous columns were published anonymously under the pseudonym "RedEye".