When the nice people at Capcom start showing me an informational presentation at Summer Game Fest about how you need to complete a puzzle before firing your weapon in their sci-fi shooter Pragmata, my eyelids get heavy, and I have a strong, sudden need for warm sugar milk and a weighted blanket. I already despise shooters, and most video game puzzles make me want to puke, so I got bored and mentally ready for my lunch time nap… until I actually start playing Pragmata, and my entire world explodes from the inside out.
I had only about 30 minutes to play the game, but it was enough time to know that I was wrong. What else had I been wrong about? My precious Zodiac sign?
It doesn't matter, because, in Pragmata, the only stars that matter are the ones that surround our weary protagonist – he has a downtrodden space cowboy vibe – Hugh. There's nothing for him to think about other than survival. He's trapped on the Moon, left for dead at a research station invaded by hostile, invincible robots.
Well, they're seemingly invincible – in the Pragmata demo I played, Hugh awakes to see the precocious android Diana having patched his wounds, and eager to show him how to effectively blast his enemies away.
You control both of them, Diana and Hugh. With Diana's hacking ability – which manifests as a simple and smooth maze using the right stick of your controller – players can momentarily disengage robots' impenetrable outer armor by hitting special nodes to reach a green, power-on block. Once you reach it, your opponent's exoskeleton will fling open to reveal their more sensitive, gushy internal wiring. If you succeed in taking them down, the robot will burst into a satisfying little electrical firework.
Impossibly, it's not totally distracting to complete this puzzle in its small pop-up window while combat is actively happening. For me, I felt that hacking only made it so I had to be extra generous with keeping distance from flesh-hungry robots. Fight sequences were also a bit more exhausting because of how much mental multitasking I was doing, though I felt the effect was exciting rather than tedious (within the 30-minute timeframe of my demo, at least).
Even on a physical level, Diana's hacking used the right stick on my controller, while Hugh's arsenal of standard, shockwave, and freeze guns utilized its triggers – so it all fits perfectly together.
But some things never change. Pragmata, having been originally announced in 2020, sports blessedly shiny, clean graphics in my demo – however, in terms of style, I'd have a hard time distinguishing it from similar sci-fi shooters like Dead Space. Still, Pragmata offers a fun twist to the over-the-shoulder shooter genre that I think could help it develop its own visual identity in time: through every danger and laser pointed my way as Hugh, I had to carry Diana on my back like a koala. I eventually started to see the two as an endearing, singular unit – a not-quite father figure with his not-quite child – and I was reminded of Mamoru Oshii's cult classic anime movie from 1985, Angel's Egg.
Diana and the unnamed young girl who's the focus of Angel's Egg look similar, with a fury of long, blonde hair telegraphing every move they make in the name of survival. Hugh, being Diana's less optimistic friend, seems to share his hopelessness with the unnamed older boy in Angel's Egg. In both the 40-year-old movie and Pragmata, the main characters present an interesting dichotomy – caution and recklessness, alone and lonely, hopeless and hoping. It's all intriguing enough to make me look forward to playing more when Pragmata releases some time in 2026 on PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.
