Pragmata Preview - A Promising Shooter With An Interesting Twist

You’d be forgiven if you forgot that Pragmata even existed. It was first announced by Capcom in 2020 during a PlayStation digital event. However, since that time, it has suffered multiple delays, with some fearing that it’s ventured into the dreaded developmental hell.

Yet, after spending 25 minutes with the game in a recent hands-on preview, I am quite confident that Capcom’s Pragmata is alive and well.

As soon as the Pragmata gameplay began, it gave me Binary Domain vibes, a seriously underrated shooter that was released in 2012. Perhaps it was the sci-fi setting, the armour worn by its protagonist, Hugh Williams and its fun third-person gameplay. Either way, it made a good early impression.

Pragmata, Capcom

When the demo started, Hugh was knocked out, on the brink of death, after taking heavy damage for reasons unknown on an abandoned space station. Thankfully, Hugh was rescued by a mysterious young android girl named Diana. Once the gameplay kicked in, I was instructed by the tutorial on how to take down a menacing droid that was aggressively charging towards me. It was at this moment that I realised that Pragmata has a very unique gameplay mechanic, and that Diana will serve a very important purpose.

Simply shooting enemies isn't enough to take them down; in fact, enemies are pure bullet sponges if you do not utilise Diana’s unique set of skills. To take down the enemy droids, you have to shoot a gun as Hugh simultaneously, but also hack the droids with Diana.

To fire a gun, it’s the typical method of pressing L2 to aim and R2 to shoot, simple enough. But to hack an enemy simultaneously, which brings down their shield, you have to press the face buttons, in this instance, Square, Triangle, Circle and Cross on the DualSense controller.

The hacking mini-game has a starting point on a grid, and you have to navigate to the designated destination by pressing the required face buttons, attempting to take the quickest route possible before the enemy gets too close. The hacking mechanic reminds me of the hacking games in BioShock.

Pragmata, Capcom

At first, I found shooting and hacking to be very awkward, but after a few attempts, I was flying through them in no time, shooting the hell out of enemies that dared oppose me as I made my way through a derelict space station.

As I approached the end of the demo, I faced a boss that had a resemblance to ED-209 from the RoboCop movies. Similar to the smaller droids, Diana’s hacking skills were essential in defeating this boss, and after multiple phases, I was able to bring it down with only a snippet of health to spare.

Then the Pragmata demo suddenly came to an end. To be honest, going in, I wasn't expecting much from it, especially since I had preconceived concerns with it being stuck in development for so long. But what I discovered was a shooter with a twist, that took me back to the days of Binary Domain with a hint of Vanquish-style visuals, which isn't a bad combination. Now, I can't wait to see what the full game has to offer.

Pragmata is set to be released sometime in 2026 on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S.