This has been a hell of a year for Capcom so far, especially with the success of their releases so far with Resident Evil Requiem and Monster Hunter Stories 3: Twisted Reflection. Each of them has gone above and beyond the expectations of fans and critics alike, and it’s been an amazing thing for me to see such quality games get dished out by Capcom. Which leads us to Pragmata.
Actually, I played a demo of this game at Tokyo Game Show last year, and I will be honest, Pragmata wasn’t really something that caught my attention back then. While the hacking while shooting thing was kind of cool, it just really didn’t stand out for me all the same, especially in the presence. HOWEVER, that all changed during the roughly 2-hour preview I attended for Pragmata last week. I can now firmly say that this game has caught my attention and has the makings of a home run title. Here are my Pragmata first impressions based on a recent hands-on session.
For those of you who don’t know, Pragmata is Capcom’s newest IP and is a sci-fi third-person action adventure game that is set in outer space. Not much is known about the story, but it involves Hugh, who seems to have been separated from his team while in a research station on the moon and got injured. He is then rescued by a girl named Diana, whom he then figures out is an android. Together, they set out on a mission to escape as they face IDUS, who turns out to be an AI who runs the station and is hostile towards them.
Pragmata as a title has a lot going for it. Initially, during the Tokyo Game Show 2025 demo, I got a taste of the unique brand of combat that the game has to offer. You basically play as BOTH Hugh and Diana, with the latter riding on the former’s back. Hugh basically is in charge of shooting and gunning down the enemies (using the bumper and trigger buttons) in the research station while getting finite weapons to equip. You get a pistol with ammo that cools down. But then you have 3 more slots where 2 allow you to pick up guns on the ground, which are discarded as soon as they run out of ammo, and you get the last slot for defensive weapons (which I’ll get to later).
Gunplay alone, though, proves to be a bit ineffective as your enemies seem to be able to take very little damage from it. Enter Diana, who can hack enemies to lower their defences (using the face buttons of the controller – triangle, square, circle, and X). A hacking grid will come up, and you have to navigate the cursor towards the hacking icon while passing obstacles on the grid AND getting buffs to strengthen the hack, which can lead to bigger damage and additional effects. And yes, you will have to do BOTH during your combat encounters. This honestly makes combat quite the exhilarating experience as dodging enemy attacks while attempting a hack AND THEN shooting them is quite intense.
But why, you might ask, didn’t I think much of it back in TGS? Simple. It felt redundant… BACK THEN. During this preview, my god, they introduced so many different enemy types, weapons, and hacking situations that made it so fun. In the preview, you would get swarmed by enemies, which can be taken out by AOE grenade launcher-type weapons. Then you have a high-power rifle that you can charge for maximum damage, and can also be shot from a distance. There’s a good amount of enemy variety that really lets you test your skills and keep combat fresh.
But wait, there’s more! Then you have counter hacking enemies that can disrupt Diana’s ability to hack. So what now? As Hugh, you’ll notice that the enemies have a 4 red window-like grids in front of their face… which kind of resemble the grids that Diana uses to hack. So if you shoot one of the 4 red windows, they eventually break, which will free up a part of Diana’s grid! It’s amazingly clever and intuitive, which just makes battle such awesome highs in the game, and I can’t wait to see more.
The setting is also quite captivating. You see, the setting was something that made me worried in the TGS demo because it felt… drab. It was all like Space Station stuff and, while I’m sure some people love that, it just wasn’t for me. And then during the preview, it had an entire section that looked like it was a replica of New York, complete with skyscrapers, signs, etc.
The last big thing that’s so interesting about the game is the dynamic between Hugh and Diana. Honestly, the demo was still short even though it was longer than the TGS demo. Given the time, sadly, I only saw a few Hugh and Grace scenes here and there. However, I will admit, their back and forth was just so amazingly sweet and heartwarming. There were moments that I just couldn’t help but smile like Hugh teaching Diana what a high five is, or how he would get some REM relics that Hugh would load up in the Shelter (aka a central hub where you can go to upgrade gear and interact with Diana) it would cause them to manifest in a digital interface that Diana can interact with. For example, Hugh could get a Playground Slide REM, and you could load that in, and Diana would be able to play with it.
While I can’t say anything more beyond this, I will say that my recent hands-on demo completely changed my opinion about Pragmata. From being something that looked very OKAY, this, I feel, is a title that can really be a home run for Capcom IF they are able to nail down the story and keep the gameplay exciting.
Pragmata will be released on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Switch 2, and PC on April 17, 2026.