Pragmata Preview: Forget running and gunning, this is all about hacking and blasting

It has been a very strange road for Capcom's Pragmata. Revealed years ago, with an interesting and unusual announcement trailer, the game then went into a long slumber, leaving many to wonder if it would ever actually awaken. It's because of this turn of events that the recent re-announcement actually felt quite surprising and unexpected, something that only feels more and more of a surprise now that I've had the chance to actually play a portion of Pragmata.

Yep, as part of a recent trip to Capcom's UK headquarters, I had the chance to experience a short slice of the game to get a brief understanding of the project that Capcom intends to deliver next year. As this was only a very brief taste of the game, I won't be touching on the story, as this was only glossed over in a short recap message, a quick summary that essentially stated the following.

Protagonist Hugh has been assigned to head to one of humanity's facilities on the moon to give it a check-up, however, upon arriving a massive quake tears the base apart and sees Hugh falling deep into its bowels, a drop that seemed like the end for our hero. Luckily, a helpful young girl, who just so happens to be an advanced android, an individual known as Diana, is on hand to patch Hugh up and then also help protect him from the other robots that call the moon base home, robots that are far from friendly. With this in mind, Hugh must find a way to radio home to Earth to report on the horrifying situation, and eventually also find a way to return home too, with Diana at his side.

So, with this being the case, the demo build begins instantly in a deep NASA-punk-like facility where Hugh has to snap to attention to survive and overcome a robot threat attacking him. This is where Pragmata reveals the first trick up its sleeve, as you can't just use the single-shot, auto-loading Grip Gun to blast the robots to pieces right away. Each bot's armour is too strong for Hugh's arsenal, but thankfully Diana has a solution, as she can hack each robot to expose its vulnerabilities allowing Hugh to properly strike back and cause damage. The hacking process is also presented as a mini-game where you have to aim at a bot and then proceed to progress through a series of grid boxes, passing over blue tiles before landing at a green tile at the end to effectively win the game and expose a bot. It's an interesting idea that is implemented by seeing the player tap the action buttons in the right direction, i.e., on PS5, Cross would be to move downwards whereas Circle would move left instead. Mastering this seems to be the bread and butter of Pragmata's combat and while it may sound like a more complex system to have to deal with while in the heat of battle, it's surprisingly quick and intuitive, and adds a neat extra dimension.

The hacking is also a very core and key part of Pragmata, as while moving through the level you will come across a variety of different nodes and locked doors that must be cracked open using Diana's immense computing power, and the interesting part is that Capcom has lined up an array of differing mini-games for each of these unique hacking scenarios. Some might require you to line up bars by clicking the action buttons to rotate each of the four 'joints' so that the lock pops open, whereas others will be simply clicking mini-games that effectively have the mechanical depth of a quick-time event without any of the necessary snappy response.

The hacking does go at least one step further too, as you can smash crates littered around the level to find Decodes, which are essentially consumable hacking boons that when passed through during the hacking game increase the amount of damage that hacked enemies receive. I would be surprised if this is the only kind of Decode that Capcom has in store, but I cannot yet confirm that as only one was present in this demo.

It might seem like I'm focussing a lot on this hacking system, but that would be because the majority of the demo I got to test revolved around gunning down robots and opening locked doors. It was a short experience that served as a taste of what's to come, a taste that painted a picture of a game that I had next to no idea about what to expect when entering Capcom's doors.

Anyway, the weapons and robots. Hugh will seemingly maintain the Grip Gun at all times, a tool that almost resembles Isaac Clarke's Plasma Cutter from Dead Space. This is a single-shot tool that is about the least effective weapon you can wield, as there are also weapons like the Shockwave Gun and the Stasis Net, with the first being a shotgun-like, high-damage tool that strikes with immense effect when up close, and the latter being a controlling system that stuns and locks down any robot enemies caught in its vicinity. The main catch with Pragmata is that these weapons aren't permanently in your kit, as when you run out of ammo, you drop them and must find another if you intend to use them again. It's an interesting twist on combat and ammo economy, one where it's not nearly as demanding as a survival horror but it does certainly make you question whether you need to burn through ammo or if you should conserve more powerful gear for a later moment.

Beyond this, levels seem to be quite linear, combining combat encounters with environmental puzzle solving, all as you head in one direction. There are boss fights, none of which I had the luxury to experience, and secrets to find too, including hidden walls to shatter for extra and handy loot. Add to these places to find extra Cartridges, the consumable item you use to top Hugh's health back up to full. In this latter way, it does somewhat resemble a Soulslike (i.e. Dark Souls' Estus Flasks), something that is relatively similar with respawn points that you can find throughout a level to save having to retrace steps. But aside from this, it's very clear that Pragmata is an action game, one that doesn't seem to have a lot of the fluff that these games can get bogged down with. There's no worrying about upgrading gear, item rarity, inventory management, none of that stuff.

It's very much just shoot robots and hack terminals, all in a really striking sci-fi NASA-punk-like world. It's because of this that I found myself quite entertained by Pragamata and interested to see where Capcom continues to take this series in the lead up to its eventual arrival in 2026.