We go hands on with Pragmata’s second big, meatier area, exploring a futuristic version of the big apple while battling even more menacing robots.
Pragmata is shaping up to be another big hit for Capcom in 2026, merging thoughtful exploration with fresh puzzles and satisfying hack-and-fire gameplay that helps give this thirrd-person shooter a distinct edge.
Between the Monster Hunter franchise continuing to kill it commercially and Resident Evil Requiem currently tearing up the sales charts too, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Capcom would feel like taking a break for the rest of 2026. In actual fact, the opposite is true, as evidenced by the upcoming release of Pragmata next month.
A totally new style of third-person shooting that brings together the best elements of hacking and exploration, up until now this oddly distinct sci-fi world directed by a young team within Capcom has remained somewhat of a mystery to me. The core act of hacking and shooting has always felt flawless in previous hands-on opportunities, of course, but until now I struggled to get my arms around how Pragmata’s structure and gameplay loop would play out.
Well, after recently getting to play roughly two hours of Pragmata’s second labyrinthine area, the scope and feel of Hugh and Diana’s adventure is finally coming into focus. Setting me off within a never-before-seen part of the space-set Research Station, this most recent demo forced me to fight and survive within a warped, surrealist version of New York. (yes, that one).
If it sounds like an incredibly madcap concept, that’s probably because it is. But even more impressive is just how confident and well put together Pragmata is shaping up to be. There’s no Dead Space, Nier: Automata or, dare I say, Mega Man rip-off to be found here. Instead, Pragmata’s second main area has convinced me that what’s here is far more unique and strange, promising to be a new sci-fi IP unafraid to take risks in its own universe.
Picking up shortly after where the publicly available ‘Sketchbook demo’ ended, Hugh and Diana’s mission to contact Earth from the floating research station swiftly forces them to take the tram to a totally new area that functions as a Mass Production Array. This is where the bulk of my recent preview demo took place, wherein I was able to sink my teeth into more of Pragmata’s mechanical quirks while exploring a warped, twisted iteration of the big apple halfway through being constructed by a rogue on-board AI called IDUS.
If this isn’t enough to pique your interest, I don’t know what will. Because what follows is a seriously impressive feat of creative level design, one that tells you even more about the point where humanity is at – largely through the environment alone.
Much like before, moving through this research station’s sector means blasting away at waves of terrifying robot creatures and machines, halting them in their tracks by hacking them remotely using Diana’s knowhow which, in gameplay terms, requires you to select the correct route ona grid using the gamepad’s face buttons.
This wildly unique ‘hack-and-shoot’ style of play really is the special stuff that holds Pragmata together and gives it an edge over Capcom’s other AAA franchises. Better yet, when combined with a flurry of inventive weapons such as the shotgun-like Shockwave Gun or enemy-freezing Stasis Net, it’s always easy to stay in control of combat scenarios regardless of how overwhelming the odds may seem.
READ MORE: John Carpenter’s Toxic Commando review – old-school co-op zombie shooter is my type of brainlessREAD MORE: Nintendo Switch 2 just got a major update that makes old games run way better
Rogue company
The main objective in my preview was to reach the faux New York area’s comms tower. Doing this, however, required me to activate six different beacons situated throughout the space in order to open a giant gate implemented by – you guessed it – IDUS. Fortunately, floating around using Hugh’s thrusters offers a great way to get around alongside grind lifts and traditional platforming, with items like more optional weapons, different hacking module types, and toys for Diana to play with back at base, stoking my curiosity even more and encouraging me to explore.
This area introduced a handful of new weapons to try out, too, all of which made tackling the endless onslaught of nightmarish AI machines even more of a blast. While the appropriately named Decoy Generator’s nature to distract enemies with a hologram version of Hugh worked as expected, it was the Riot Blaster, being a grenade launcher of sorts, that most helped me to make light work of intimidating enemy groups.
Pragmata is smart about making you consider your options in battle, however, since equipping the Riot Blaster meant having to give up the Stasis Gun. Since certain weapons are confined to a specific colour-coded weapon category – red, blue, and green – you’ll likely never be able to dominate foes exactly to your liking.
One of the best aspects of exploring this digital fabrication of New York City is all the questions it brings up and dialogue beats it allows Hugh and Diana to share. Because of course, Diana, as an android native to the research station, doesn’t understand why humans would eat at a table together or why going to the store to buy things was a routine ritual for people back on Earth. Contrastingly, as an average joe-turned-space explorer stranded on the station, Hugh’s nature to fill her in and explain more about the way humanity works as he’s familiar with it makes for an interesting teacher-student dynamic between the two.
It was around midway through the preview when another layer of Pragmata’s hacking gameplay revealed itself in the form of enemies who could, in a sense, hack back! We all know Capcom loves creepy enemies that stalk you (thanks, Resident Evil) yet I was still surprised to come across a version in Pragmata, styled after giant, metal babies featuring dead facial expressions that make them even more menacing.
Not only are they creepy to look at but their nature to block Diana’s hacks by locking off certain segments of the hack grid caught me well off guard, forcing me to blast off specific facial components or find a new route through the grid while hacking. As annoying as this initially seemed, it’s yet another way Pragmata wants to give you multiple options with how to approach fights, and it’s something I can’t wait to see developed further as the game progresses.
My time exploring a broken New York City culminated in a climatic boss fight against a spindly, caterpillar-like endoskeleton with large teeth. Forcing me as Hugh to persistently run around its legs to find the perfect vantage point to hack and shoot, the scale of this fight took me aback and consistently kept me on the back foot with the way I was forced to jump, dodge, and climb in order to fend off its attacks. If you thought Pragmata being sci-fi in nature meant ginormous boss fights were off the table, think again. With this just being the second area, I can’t even imagine how large in scale bosses beyond this one will be.
As if it wasn’t already made apparent by the game’s previous showings and the aforementioned sketchbook demo, Pragmata is shaping up to be an incredibly confident and unique offering from Capcom. Not only willing to introduce and explore smart sci-fi ideas but also integrate them neatly into gameplay, it’s a third-person hack-and-shooter debut I can’t wait to delve further into.
All of Pragmata’s risks and concepts, however outlandish, appear to be paying off infinitely so far, indicating to me that Resident Evil Requiem might not be Capcom’s only GOTY candidate for 2026.
Pragmata is scheduled to release on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC, and Nintendo Switch 2 on April 17, 2026.
