Pragmata Review

Capcom’s latest third-person shooter is one of its oddest proposals to date. Pragmata is an over-the-shoulder shooter that cribs combat elements from the survival horror greats, often leaning into that genre’s acute tension, but anchored with endearing and occasionally bubbly characters. Events take place in the near future on the Cradle, a lunar research base where all signs of life have mysteriously vanished. A rogue AI is controlling all manner of menacing robots throughout the station. Sent with a crew to investigate why the Cradle has suddenly gone silent, protagonist Hugh leads his fellow astronauts to the Moon before they’re all wiped out by what appears to be a freak accident on arrival. Armed with naught but a hefty-sounding peashooter, Hugh quickly learns his weaponry is little defence against the computerised forces intent on making sure no organic matter interferes with their home. With Hugh now stranded on the Moon, he seeks a way back to Earth while surviving the lumbering metallic forces that seek his eradication. Luckily, he happens upon the titular Pragmata named Diana: a child-like AI that functions outside of the Cradle’s hostile network, while also being able to interfere and overcome those protocols. Her abilities allow her to hack the enemy bots, thus exposing them more effectively to Hugh’s relatively weak gunfire. It’s Diana and Hugh against the Moon, and despite having steep competition in the buddy-adventure sphere, you’ll be rooting for them before you know it.

The biggest surprise for me coming into Pragmata was that it immediately produces a tension that is rarely seen outside of survival horror games. Diana’s hacking abilities feel like a marginally more involved version of Alan Wake’s flashlight mechanic, forcing the player to expose each foe before they can be effectively destroyed. Across the Cradle, Hugh and Diana will frequently find themselves in closed-off rooms and corridors as lumbering robots spawn in and aggressively approach our fragile heroes, with the low-gravity sci-fi trappings causing these situations to echo Dead Space’s specific flavour of claustrophobia. Aiming Hugh’s weapons over a robot slows down time and opens up a grid for hacking. The player will then use the right face buttons to draw a path through it. Once the path reaches the green power icon, the enemy will become exposed, and Hugh can concentrate his deliberately clunky firing skills on their vulnerable weak points. 

Pragmata’s cinematic finishers would make Leon S Kennedy proud

Combat encounter difficulty is curated to push the player as far as their current weapons and hacking abilities will allow, resulting in a masterful challenge curve. In the early game, the hacking grid is tiny, and you’ll be unlikely to face more than three foes at a time. By the late game, you’ll have a flexible array of options for manipulating hacks such as targeting multiple foes, freezing them in place, and even causing them to attack one another. Survival means pulling on every tool available. Heck, by the end of Pragmata, I was having to claw-grip the controller with as many fingers as possible due to how much prompt utility surrounds it (Saros has you doing this from the first couple of hours). However hectic the controls might seem to become, with weapons that kick and splutter, the controls are nevertheless consistently reliable and responsive throughout the adventure.

As the game moves through its 14-hour runtime, the variety of enemies and the tools to defeat them steadily increases. The hacking grid will become bigger with tougher enemies, and there will be obstacles to navigate that can interrupt the real-time puzzles. In response, Hugh and Diana’s weapons and abilities are always expanding, with their unlocks adorned in your hub shelter between missions. Further to my earlier survival horror comparison, there are only a few effective damage-dealing weapons, and all your offensive output has very limited mileage. In busier encounters, Pragmata forces the player to make dozens of decisions in fleeting moments while menacing bots encroach. To be effective, players are always making sure their focused enemies are hacked, while using decoys to distract other bots, deployable shields to block ranged fire, stasis nets to halt advancing backup, and shotguns for the inevitable decommissioning. There are no ammo pickups, though you can find weapons lying about that you can swap out wholesale. Strictly speaking, weapons are stingy, and you will burn through your tools before scrounging for restocks before your next encounter. Victory is fought within the narrowest of margins, and it is remarkable how thrilling and balanced these fights consistently are. 

Fighting a giant Mantis that goes Godzilla on faux-NYC might be an all-timer boss fight

The two types of fights that excited me most in Pragmata were boss fights and the fleetingly few larger spaces where enemies would roam freely. Little should be mentioned of the boss fights that close out each zone on the Cradle; suffice it to say that though there are few of them, they are all epic in scale and knuckle-reddeningly memorable. For the run-of-the-mill combat, two of my favourite combat zones were the streets of a 3D printed New York City and a section on the moon’s outdoor surface where a giant techno-worm would patrol and zero in on your footsteps. Fighting and weaving between giant humanoid bots called Executors amongst the glitched, misprinted litter of NYC’s reimagined streets was kind of frightening as they lumber towards you like the titular Titans from a little-known anime. If they don’t initially scare you, they will after dealing enough damage to them that they begin rapidly scampering about on all fours while screeching in Dubstep. In these larger spaces, Hugh’s exosuit is capable of hovering and dashing about, making for interesting sequences that meshed platforming and combat. Similarly, Hugh’s low-grav agility is critical when dodging the metallic Shai-Hulud patrolling outside the Cradle while he’s also fighting off the many fleshphobic clankers. These are just ordinary levels that showcase Capcom’s team firing off on all cylinders, no set-piece limitations or gimmicks.

Ironically, the sheer heights of these few non-linear combat sequences and the major bosses are so excellent that it is hard to ignore how pedestrian the rest of the game’s fights can feel in comparison. For every one of those awesome encounters, there are a dozen prescribed fights that trip you up within virtually every other room you enter. While none of these fights are bad, they form a repetitive pattern that feels a little tedious by the time credits roll. I could expect that on the other side of every door in the white-panelled and sanitised Cradle was a closed-off arena fight lying in wait. It became a bit rote, however strong and satisfying the combat encounters within might be. 

Players can simultaneously hack, shoot, and hover without showing any sign of input awkwardness

Then there’s our reason for being here. The mystery around why the Cradle has become deserted isn’t explained overly well unless you’re reading every text log and watching the stilted holograms of the former base staff. Though the critical path’s storytelling left me wholly unconvinced as to the why and how of the disaster that has occurred, the Lunar base’s clean white NASA-punk aesthetic is immune to any lived-in characteristics, clashing with the story being told. Deadly machines are wreaking havoc in a research facility, yet there’s often little evidence to suggest as much. Without the player doing the extra legwork to take in the many text logs and stilted holograms (weak by Capcom standards), there’s little reason to be drawn into this sterile environment. By the time the credits rolled, I couldn’t really care less about the story and its machinations that barely intersect with Diana and Hugh in any meaningful way. 

Despite that, this tag-team had me genuinely moved by the credits. Capcom pulls off a tonal miracle in Pragmata, meshing light sci-fi horror with a curious, intimate human drama and the lightest touch of whimsy. Their endearing attitude in the face of bleak odds was emotionally considered and never overwrought, making for a duo that I’m proud to say belongs alongside gaming greats like Ratchet & Clank and Jak & Daxter. The writing may not be especially praiseworthy, but the delivery and animation made this heartfelt pair of underdogs believable and sympathetic.

These low-fi hologram moments deliver the context for Pragmata’s big mystery, but they’re a bit of a miss

Final Thoughts

Pragmata is better than it has any right to be. It is so clearly inspired by some excellent survival horror games and action platformers from two decades ago, all reinterpreted in an original property with exciting runway for future expansion. The bittersweet adventure of Hugh and Diana walks a tonal knife-edge that it largely pulls off with aplomb. Though the story doesn’t quite hit as hard as it should and the gameplay suffers from one too many samey combat arenas, its rock-solid fundamentals make this hard to put down. The real-time hacking and tactical shooting ensure no encounter is ever boring, in spite of the sometimes unexciting environments in which they take place. Ultimately, Pragmata succeeds in eliciting difficult emotions through both its high-stakes encounters and intimate character narrative. Enough so that the curious little AI and her guardian produced tears, fist pumps, and a genuinely great time in spite of some minor flaws. That Pragmata nails as much as it does for a first outing is nothing short of impressive. Between its endearing heart, tough-as-nails combat loop, and freaking awesome boss fights, Capcom remains on its generational run for 2026.

Reviewed on PS5 // Review code supplied by publisher

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