Pragmata hands-on preview: one of the most refreshing shooters in ages

Two hours with Capcom's latest was one hell of a blast

Ever since Capcom revealed Pragmata in 2020, the questions have flowed like a river. What’s with the moody astronaut? Does that little girl have psychic powers? Is that… Times Square? (Are we secretly playing a Mega Man game?) A recent hands-on preview of the game cleared up many questions surrounding Pragmata, but didn’t dissipate any of the intrigue around it. If anything, Pragmata seems more intriguing than ever.

Following an indefinite delay in 2023, it seemed Pragmata was destined to become the next Scalebound — a buzzy game that rode years of hype into an ignominious cancellation. But then Pragmata showed legit signs of life. Over the past year, Polygon has previewed Pragmata multiple times. We’ve talked about its exhilarating combat (a mix of third-person shooting and board-game hacking). We’ve talked about its performance on Nintendo Switch 2 (shockingly good!). This recent preview was the most extensive yet, covering roughly two hours of early gameplay and revealing a lot of what the game actually is.

First, to answer the questions at the top of this story, in order: His friends are dead. She does not. And yes/no/kinda. (And no, this is still not a stealth Mega Man game.)

The demo opened with protagonists Hugh (the astronaut) and Diana (the android child) in a hub area of a station situated on the moon’s surface. At this hub, which you can return to from checkpoints, you can spend various currencies upgrading your weapons, abilities, spacesuit stats like health, and Diana’s hacking prowess. You can also customize your loadouts from weapons and hacking abilities you’ve discovered, and can apply passive perks from mods you’ve unlocked. In other words, yes, Pragmata is a bit of a menus game.

From the hub, you can pick a location to head to, which are neatly numbered and appear to effectively serve as Pragmata’s levels. The demo started us at region number two: the Mass Production Array. There, Hugh and Diana need to repair a communications tower to establish a comms link to Earth and report back about some disaster that seems to have happened before the start of the demo. A few lunar base hallways later and the pair ends up in… New York Cit-ay!

Only it’s not quite New York City, but rather a facsimile — part of what a few discoverable journal entries call the Urban Recreation Project, which “re-creates iconic cityscapes from major cities such as New York, Seoul, Madrid, and Delhi and is an unprecedented large scale output test.”

To proceed from one side of not-Times Square to the other, Hugh and Diana have to unlock six locks. These locks are controlled by six “access beacons” strewn around a nonlinear area composed of skyscrapers, Hell’s Kitchen rowhomes, and futuristic space station architecture. Several pathways were blocked off by seemingly unbreakable purple crystals. (Diana eventually gets an upgrade that lets you clear these obstructions, opening new routes for both exploration and backtracking. Yes, Pragmata is also a bit of a Metroidvania.) Here, Pragmata regrettably slips into one of the less palatable tropes of modern AAA gaming. “Where to?” Hugh asks. “Try scanning,” Diana says.

The scan reveals exactly where to go, deflating the thrill of exploring a digitized recreation of what at least one New Jersey resident described as the “center of the universe.” But at least the combat is as riveting as it’s been in previous demos. When aiming at enemies, you use the D-pad to control Diana’s hacking powers, thumbing a cursor through a square maze; once completed, that exposes an enemy’s weak points, allowing you to shoot them with Hugh’s gun. If anything, this system is even more fascinating when presented with more varied enemies to fight against and a wider kit of skills to use.

Beyond standard-issue pistol, shotgun, and grenade launcher that are in every third-person shooter, in Pragmata, you can also wield a precision charge rifle, which allows you to hold down the trigger for high-damage shots; a decoy ray, which distracts enemies; and a stasis net, which traps them in place. Diana, meanwhile, can pick up abilities that enhance her hacks, like allowing her to expose multiple enemies at once. It’s unclear how many weapons and abilities will be in the full game. But the strongest one is, without question, the environment. At certain points, you can hack modules that cause nuclear-powered lasers to pour out of the ceiling, destroying everything they strike with a splash of 9,999s across the screen. (Hugh dies instantly if caught in these lasers, a lesson that was learned the hard way. Twice.)

While exploring the Mass Production Array, Hugh and Diana engage in dialogue reminiscent of famous duos like Joel and Ellie, or Booker and Elizabeth, or… you get the picture. Hugh recalls how he and his astronaut boy band were sent to investigate a location on the moon called The Cradle. He talks about how his friend Nick died, and how he hasn’t heard from Ken. Diana, meanwhile, asks questions about life on Earth. Do humans really have to waste time consuming organic matter to keep up their energy? Do they spend time watching entertainment shown in these posters, like Resident Devil 3?

After unlocking all six doors, Hugh and Diana can head to the communications tower… but not before a boss fight! This robot, as tall as the buildings in Times Square, was shaped like an ant with the head of a hammerhead shark. Clearly Capcom is pulling out its most twisted nightmare designs. Defeating this boss required nimble use of every tool in Hugh’s kit: using the stasis net to freeze it, the charge rifle to deal maximum damage, and the decoy gun to distract it. The demo ended upon its defeat.

Pragmata left me wanting more in a way game demos often don’t. It’s no secret the consolidation of the games industry has stifled creativity, as the biggest publishers invest in sequels and prequels at the expense of new projects. Demos of games like Metroid Prime 4: Beyond and Resident Evil Requiem showed early signs of greatness for both — but at the end of the day, they’re still just a new Metroid Prime or Resident Evil. Pragmata, at every turn, has presented something new, something unlike anything I’ve played in years. We need that now more than ever.

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Pragmata will be released April 17 for Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, and Xbox Series X.