Pragmata's Unique Action and Puzzle Blend May Grab the Headlines

It's rare for us to give a game multiple bites at the preview apple, especially over such a short period. But Pragmata is an interesting case. Each time Capcom has presented it, the publisher has teased a small glimpse of what the game might be - meagre but enticing at the same time.

A Full Game Experience

Back in the summer, we saw its unique mixture of hacking and shooting presented in a very stripped-back demo. A few months later, we saw a tiny bit more - but no matter how intriguing, it still felt like more concept demo than game. Now, though, I finally understand what Pragmata is. My third time playing it at last presents a vision of a full game, the title's elusive 'gameplay loop' exposed.

The True Nature of Pragmata

Also laid bare in this latest hands-on is the true nature of the game, which itself feels a far cry from the curated demos I experienced previously. There are more enemies, they are stronger, and the player has less time to breathe. In a few places it's actually pretty brutal.

The Rhythm of Gameplay

What quickly becomes apparent is that the previous demos were tuned to do one thing only: sell Capcom's concept of the hack-and-shoot gameplay of Pragmata. If you missed our previous natterings, the short summary is that most enemies in the game are initially nigh impervious to protagonist Hugh's gunfire.

Thankfully, he has android girl Diana on his back. When you squeeze the left trigger to aim at enemies, instead of pulling the right trigger to fire you can instead use the face buttons to solve small sliding block puzzles to hack enemies.

Once breached, enemies become more vulnerable to gunfire and also often are slowed down. In the other demos this was cute - in the more final presentation, we have a game of the sort that has the ability trigger a little bead of sweat on your brow as you duck, dive, and try to manage distances, space, dodge attacks, hack, and shoot multiple enemies in the tight quarters of Pragmata's claustrophobic space station setting.

The Philosophy Behind Pragmata

"You have the hacking, the thrusters, and the shooting. You're going to be working through these elements," explains Pragmata director Cho Yonghee. He draws out an invisible triangle on the table between us, a representation of the three core tenants of Pragmata's gameplay.

His hand bounces between the three extremes of that triangle as he murmurs "don, don, don, don" - a Japanese onomatopoeia akin to the rhythmic thud of a drum. I've seen this exact verbalization of the rhythm of gameplay in countless Japanese interviews before, but I think Pragmata might be the game where that pulsing example feels most appropriate.

"You're gonna be hacking the enemies, and then you're gonna be using the thruster to get out of the way, and then you're gonna be shooting the enemies," Yonghee continues, at a rolling speed which is evocative of that which the player much react and flip between the various modes of thinking in-game.

A Game for the Discerning Player

While it's clear there hasn't been any intention to set out to make some sort of Soulsian mega-difficult game, Pragmata's team is clearly acutely aware that they have made something quite unlike much else on the market.

I expect it is going to be a 'Marmite game', and a cult hit - the sort of thing that those who 'get it' will adore and those who don't will abhor.

The Accessibility Factor

But there's been clear thought in trying to increase that accessibility, which is where Pragmata's inexorable rhythm spreads to the rest of the game. Enter the Shelter.

I had thought Pragmata might be a straight-up stage-based game - but instead of a linear A-B-C thread, the game instead features a safe 'hub zone' from which Hugh and Diana are dispatched to the rest of the lunar station.

It's wheel-and-spoke design; the Shelter is the wheel's centre, while each of its stages is a spoke you can visit and explore, with the protagonist pair taking a tram to and from stages.

A Focus on Customization

"We didn't want to have a game that's just a game where you go from A to B, and you finish that game with one playthrough. We want to have a game where you can go back and forth," says Yonghee.

While you can 'critical path' the game and "steamroll it" if you so desire, that's not really the intended design - the intent is that you'll bounce back and forth between various stages and the Shelter in a not-necessarily-linear manner.

This is quietly incentivized. In the tram menu where you select which stage you want to travel to there's completion percentages, and you'll probably want to hoover up the majority of what a stage has to offer, for the game's currencies and unlocks become important to forming a playstyle.

A Game Changer

Another thing the previous Pragmata media beats had bafflingly hidden was how much there is to the experience. I'd genuinely low-key feared it might only have three or four different weapons in total, but in reality it turns out there's rather a lot of them.

There's a range of weapons that can be upgraded, and so too can things like Hugh's suit, Diana's hacking, and a range of abilities. There's also attachments.

Basically, there's a lot of stuff to consider and quite a bit of flexibility in character building - which is both a manner to make that frantic gameplay easier to manage by building a setup more suitable for you, and also an incentive to replay stages, collect everything available, and experiment.

A Balanced Experience

"We have all these weapons, and we have this ability for people to customize their arsenal, to customise their loadouts to what they want to do," Yonghee continues. "We want to have a game where you can go back and forth, and you try different weapons.

But also then once they've felt like they tried it out, to then go back to the shelter and try something new. Go back, upgrade, change the weapons around, change the nodes around, and then try to take the difficult enemies down again.

"The idea behind it is to have at least enough that you can upgrade several different weapons at least. We want you to have the opportunity to switch around, but also then focus on one type and then pivot to focus on another type if you want.

A Reboot, Not a Revival

The result is a fascinating mix that was only better in its more difficult and more thought-provoking proper hands-on than it was in the two previous proof-of-concept style demos.

Seeing the full 'loop' of Pragmata laid bare has cemented its place in my list of most anticipated games for 2026.

One thing the game isn't, however, is a back-door-pilot for a return of another of Capcom's heroes. Diana's poses in key art, her status as an android, and her bright blue puffer jacket has the internet conspiracy theorists up in arms.

When I bring it up, the director and producer both laugh and grimace at once.