Pragmata Review

Capcom has been baking Pragmata for a long time. Originally announced way back in 2020, it looked like one of Capcom’s smaller cool projects they release sometimes that always punch above their weight, see Shinsekai: To the Depths and Kunitsugami as examples. This time though Capcom kept cooking and now Pragmata has arrived as a fully-fledged RE Engine title. Can it pragmatically live up to its hype, or will it drift away into open space?

Pragmata tells the story of Hugh and Diana. Hugh is an older man, one of the last humans left in the station. He finds and bonds with Diana, an android girl who possesses advanced tech abilities and embodies an experimental AI. They unravel what happened and form a genuinely interesting and meaningful relationship as the story progresses. Naturally in such a huge place Hugh and Diana are not the only “people” around and so they encounter a few colourful characters as they go!

In fact, they find themselves up against a group of adversaries controlled by the rogue AI, IDUS, and must fight their way through to find the truth and work out what they need to do to get Hugh back home. The story does a good job of getting players invested in Hugh’s plight and endearing them to Diana. It’s the tried and tested father and child dynamic that shines through here. The story makes great use of tone and has some amazing set piece cutscenes that really wow with both design and plot!

Gameplay is quite unique. For those who played the demo, the combat should feel intuitive but goes deeper with more options in the final release. For new players, Pragmata is a cool blend of puzzle and combat gameplay all with a distinctly Capcom design methodology. Players control both Hugh and Diana simultaneously. While aiming, the player also has access to a variety of complex and simple puzzles that break down enemy defences. Diana is controlled on the Cross, Square, Triangle and Circle buttons while Hugh makes use of the rest of the controller. This takes a bit of getting used to but is pretty intuitive after a few early fights.

It means players are constantly kept switched on – focusing on moving and shooting with Hugh, while puzzling and hacking with Diana. It’s a pretty genius system and something that truly sets Pragmata apart (avoiding potential Resident Evil in Space vibes). Hugh gets a variety of weapons throughout the game, all offering more options for fighting and subverting all manner of foes. He can also collect modules for hacking that offer extended enemy weakness timing and extra damage boosts.

There are a surprising amount of interesting enemy and boss designs, this isn’t Resident Evil 7’s house of “mouldy men”. Each enemy has its own puzzles to break, as well as weak points, turning each battle into a relatively strategic endeavour. Many of the areas will require careful use of resources and tackling enemies in “best” orders on harder difficulties.

Outside of this, there are a plethora of collectables, weapons and upgrades to collect. Including crafting materials that can be used to build new suits! This helps incentivise exploration and investment in the story. The game does somewhat operate out of a hub Shelter. Here players can interact with Diana and a variety of collectables earning little titbits of information and character building. By exploring thoroughly, players can unlock fast travel to different areas across the station as well. It’s a well-structured design.

Environmental storytelling isn’t always super strong. It can hit hard when the game deliberately emphasises it. Most of this happens in “virtual” environments. The most well shown being the “AI New York”, which has this unreal-realness that gives everything that eerie Gen-AI weirdness, but all confirmed hand crafted by the developers and artists. These areas are super important to the story especially with Diana learning about Hugh.

Visually Pragmata is stunning, though it can look a little crunchy or have some performance hiccups on base PS5. The character designs have some lovely details and the hair looks great, using the same hair strand system as Resident Evil Requiem. Hugh’s base armour is white, resulting in him blending into some of the areas with their similar aesthetic. Diana is a breath of fresh air, her long blonde hair and signature blue coat… dress… thing makes her stand out in pretty much all areas.

The station itself is very cool, making use of limited long-distance views and open space it has this interesting pseudo-NASA space race look to it. Everything is chunky and synthetic yet, somehow vibrant and slick. It’s a very cool aesthetic reminiscent of something like GameCube’s P.N.03, sans the buttock hugging suits. Enemies have interesting looks though are mostly robotic – each variant is distinct enough at a glance that players can immediately take action, which is something not many games manage to do these days!

Voicework is great too, both English and Japanese voices do the hard job of getting across the right emotional weight. From Diana’s childish curiosity to Hugh’s disgruntled but gentle nature, dialogue is fabulously acted throughout the story. Main adversaries are also suitably menacing when required. All of this is accentuated by a clean soundscape that has a lot of music but doesn’t overshadow the environmental sound design that lends the station it’s atmosphere.

Being a Capcom title, there is also plenty of postgame content and unlockables that make replaying a fun experience. It’s great to see the pivot that has been made back to including unlockable costumes and the like. Not just locking them behind a paywall or pre-order (though pre-order costumes are available). Hopefully the studio can come up with some extra content in the future to explore more aspects of Pragmata’s characters and world!