Earlier this month, a team of astronauts embarked on the first manned trip outside Earth’s orbit since 1972. While they didn’t land on the moon, simply venturing beyond Earth’s atmosphere and into the unknown is awe-inspiring. Amidst the turmoil on Earth, something as aspirational as space exploration captivates us. Every lunar mission expands our understanding of that celestial body and what humanity can achieve.
I too recently undertook a “lunar journey.” Except mine involved being attacked by robots. As astronaut Hugh in Capcom’s Pragmata, I ventured to a version of the moon with an established human presence, home to a research facility run by the Delphi Corporation. My space mission experience was wildly different from the astronauts on the Artemis 2 mission: instead of spitting into a tube or being woken up by “Pink Pony Club”, I was hounded by killer 3D-printed robots controlled by a rogue AI. Hopefully, no real-life astronauts traveling to the moon will encounter the same fate.
Pragmata has been a long time coming. For years, prospective players only saw trailers with cutesy delay messages. Capcom announced it during the June 2020 PlayStation 5 reveal stream, and now we’re on the precipice of another generation of hardware. But Pragmata shows that innovation can’t be rushed; it happens one small step at a time before a giant leap.
Joining Hugh is Diana, a childlike android crucial to both Pragmata’s gameplay and its story. Their relationship, strengthened as they investigate the base and the reason for the robots’ rogue behavior, forms the emotional core of the game. But the real heart of Pragmata lies in its inventive gameplay systems: it uniquely combines standard third-person shooting with a hacking minigame. While these elements might seem commonplace individually, together, within the flow and intensity of combat, they make Pragmata feel unlike anything I’ve ever played.
All enemies in Pragmata are robots, meaning they’re all susceptible to being hacked – and you must hack them to deal any damage. Otherwise, Hugh’s bullets do a fraction of the expected damage. Aiming at a robot allows Diana, perched on Hugh’s back, to hack it by moving a cursor through a series of nodes on a grid toward a green endpoint, exposing the enemy’s weak points. Once exposed, Hugh can unleash his firepower.
Hacking is surprisingly intuitive. At first, I thought it might take some getting used to since the controller’s face buttons are used to navigate the grid (not the D-pad or thumbsticks), and you can’t move the camera simultaneously while hacking. But after a few hacks, the controls feel natural. I became an experienced juggler, simultaneously moving Hugh around, aiming at a robot, pressing the right bumper to dodge, and navigating the hacking grid. The system has the potential to feel overwhelming but quickly becomes second nature; by the end of the game, I’m focusing on an enemy’s attacks while subconsciously navigating the grid in my periphery.
And keeping an eye on your enemies is key because the hacking is done in real-time. Pragmata doesn’t pause; time doesn’t slow down. Hugh is in danger every step of the way.
The real-time nature adds adrenaline-pumping stress to Pragmata’s combat. I’m accustomed to cover-based third-person shooters where I can drop behind rubble or a pillar for breathing room. No such reprieve exists in Pragmata. Several robots are larger than Hugh, and encounters often occur in small rooms or walled-off hallways, forcing Hugh and Diana to dance around attacks while Diana works to open up the enemy.
The hacking evolves throughout Pragmata. Blue nodes on the grid increase the hack’s damage, and Hugh and Diana acquire yellow upgrade nodes that affect enemies differently when passed through during a successful hack. One confuses robots into attacking their allies; another freezes them in place. I often rely on the multi-hack node, which transfers a successful hack to nearby enemies, making large group encounters more manageable. Remember, Hugh’s guns are useless unless an enemy is hacked and its weak points exposed.
There are various nodes to try out, as well as guns. Hugh starts with his trusty pistol, which replenishes ammo quickly. Other guns have limited bullets, requiring constant swapping throughout a level. The shotgun-like shockwave was an early favorite, as was the grenade launcher that could knock robots to the floor, opening them up for hacks without fear of attack.
That’s where Pragmata truly shines: everything in its combat revolves around hacking. Some guns make hacking easier, like stasis nets that hold enemies in place or sticky bombs that delete rows from the hacking grid. Once enemies are hacked, it’s time to switch to high-damage guns to exploit those weak points.
There are so many options in Pragmata that its builds almost feel roguelike. My favorite loadout focuses on building up a “heat” gauge in robots. Once maxed out, they kneel, opening themselves for a critical attack dealing massive damage. During some encounters, I focused less on shooting an enemy once open and more on completing successful hacks, knowing one critical attack was worth any number of normal shots. Different mods enhance builds too, like one that increases hack damage but reduces weapon damage, and vice versa.
Despite constantly experimenting with different approaches to combat throughout my 12 hours with the game, I still feel like there are strategies I haven’t discovered. That’s the beauty of Pragmata; it combines two simple mechanics – a minigame and third-person shooting – to create something truly unique, something that begs to be tinkered with.
Other areas of Pragmata aren’t as innovative and border on feeling outdated. Its narrative revolves around a corporation experimenting with artificial intelligence on the moon, but Pragmata isn’s saying anything new about the technology that The Terminator didn’t already articulate in 1984. There are scattered emails about corporate surveillance and how some workers worry AI might replace their jobs. Ideas that felt frightening in 2020, when Pragmata was announced, are our reality in 2026. Jobs are already lost to AI, including those in the games journalism industry.
Similarly, Pragmata is very focused on 3D printing, which felt novel years ago but mundane today. Everything is printed by a special material found on the moon, from Hugh’s guns to the bots he battles. It was introduced early on, clearly meant to make the player “ooooh” with intrigue, but 3D printing has become commonplace that Pragmata treating it as remarkable feels uninspired.
Because the levels are 3D-printed constructions, Pragmata can feature various locales. Delphi is experimenting with recreating parts of cities on the lunar base, starting with New York City. Navigating a facsimile of Times Square and a forest level helps Pragmata avoid being just another series of white, drab moon base corridors that typically define lunar fiction.
Hugh and Diana’s relationship doesn’t tread new territory; we’ve seen plenty of “Dad Games” in recent years, like the God of War reboot and The Last of Us, but it is refreshing. After initially saying he doesn’t want to be a babysitter, Hugh quickly embraces being something of a father figure to Diana. He’s encouraging, thoughtful, caring, and a damn-good dad, and together, they make a fine team.
Hugh can bring gifts back to Diana called REM, Read Earth Memories. These are 3D recreations of everyday items on Earth, which Diana is delighted by. She loves hearing about Earth from Hugh, with basketballs and beach chairs helping her understand what a normal childhood would have been like had she been human and not an android. Sometimes, after receiving a REM, Diana offers Hugh a gift: a crayon drawing of the two of them. You can also play hide-and-seek with her. Adorable.
While some elements are more rote than others, like an unmemorable story centered around a killer AI, Pragmata’s hacking-infused gameplay is unlike anything I’ve played before, making the entire adventure worth checking out. Innovation like that isn’t achieved unless boundary-pushers return to a genre explored countless times for another expedition. Just as astronauts first went to the moon in the 1960s and have been expanding lunar knowledge since, the third-person shooter has been solidified for some time. Some people wonder what the point of more space exploration is. We’ve already been to the moon – why go back? We’ve perfected the third-person shooter – why mix up a good thing? Because there’s still so much to learn and innovate. The astronauts aboard the Integrity spacecraft are paving the way for more space exploration, and who knows what other discoveries await. Capcom’s Pragmata is innovating on a genre after a long development cycle, returning with something unique. We won’t know what lies beyond traditional genre conventions or the moon if we aren’t willing to venture past already known horizons.
Pragmata will be released April 17 on Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X. The game was reviewed on PS5 using a prerelease download code provided by Capcom. You can find additional information about Polygon’s ethics policy here.
Source: Polygon
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