In June of 2020 Capcom announced Pragmata, a brand new Sci-fi adventure and their first original IP in many years. Originally pegged for a 2022 release, it was pushed to 2023, then delayed indefinitely. Finally, after nearly two years of radio silence, it reemerged in Sony’s latest State of Play, and at Summer Game Fest, we finally got to go hands-on with it. We are happy to report that Pragmata is real, and it is cool as hell.
Pragmata is set aboard a high-tech space station on the Moon, where some sort of rogue AI disaster has taken place. The demo opens with Hugh, Pragmata’s spacesuit-wearing protagonist, collapsed on the ground, one of his legs badly injured. Diana, a mysterious young girl with the power to hack machines and computers, finds him. She patches his wound, and the two set off to find a way to escape back to Earth.
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The feeling of isolation as our duo explored the interconnected compartments, where something had clearly gone very wrong, gave a strong “Bioshock in Space” vibe. Sterile-white hallways lead to larger chambers, separated by locks for Diana to hack. Occasional signs of struggle, like a partially destroyed office, give implicit clues to what happened, though it’s all still shrouded in mystery.
Get lost in space in Pragmata.
Hugh’s suit is equipped with thrusters, which are great for a quick dash or hovering in the air to fly across gaps. This is especially handy at a segment near the end of our demo, where we needed to track down and hack five locks scattered around a large room. The highly vertical layout meant a lot of platforming, ducking into side corridors, and backtracking.
At one point, I found a side hallway that didn’t lead towards any of the locks, but did end in a secret room behind a hologram of a wall. Inside was an upgrade to Diana’s hacking ability, a nice reward for going off the beaten path, and a sign that exploration will be rewarded.
There were no other people to be found, just various robots trying to eliminate Hugh and Diana. While Hugh can move and shoot in a relatively straightforward 3rd person shooter style, the rampaging bots are extremely durable and take little damage initially.
That’s where Diana comes in, riding in your back like the Kazooie to your Banjo, she hacks into enemies, causing their outer shells (their skin, really) to open up and expose the vulnerable interiors. This creates the opportunity to do meaningful damage and target strategic spots like the legs of humanoid machines to drop them to the ground, giving you more time to maneuver and shoot.
That is pretty simple on the surface, but the twist is that you control both of these characters at the same time. Aiming down sights with Hugh also brings up a grid for Diana. Your job is to connect your starting point to a specific node to complete the hack. Moving and shooting with Hugh using the sticks and triggers while simultaneously mapping out your hacking path using the face buttons is very rub-your-belly-and-pat-your-head, just with guns and killer robots.
Multitasking is key to survival in Capcom’s Pragmata.
In our demo, we were initially equipped with a simple pistol with six shots of regenerating ammo. Eventually, we found a shotgun which, while limited in ammo, could obliterate basic enemies once they’d been hacked, and a gun that fired some sort of digital net, which came in handy for holding enemies in place when we needed to fight a few at the same time. Those, combined with the suits’ thrusters, made fights an engaging mix of shooting, hacking, dodging, and leaping over attacks.
Eventually, we reached a control room. Powering up the console opened the shutters on the windows, exposing the lunar surface. Just when it seems like things are going our way, an alarm sounds. The Rogue AI has found us. Its response comes in the form of heavy footsteps, as a two-story tall mech emerges, takes aim at Hugh and Diana, and the screen fades to black as our demo ends.
Even in our short time it was easy to get sucked into the mystery, and it will be interesting to see how Diana and Hugh’s relationship evolves in the final release. While the gameplay is very different, the unique approach to action harkens back to Capcom’s history of ambitious experimentation in past titles like Lost Planet and Asrau’s Wrath, and it will be exciting to see how it comes together.
Pragmata is set to release sometime in 2026 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC.
