We’ve known about Pragmata for nearly six years — or, to put it another way, since before the PS5 even launched.
Announced during the initial PS5 showcase event, Capcom’s sci-fi action game has been in the works for the console’s entire lifespan so far. After such a lengthy development period, the question many will have is whether it’s been worth the extended wait.
We’re pleased to say it has. Pragmata is another great action game that continues the publisher’s incredible run of form.
You play as Hugh, part of a team sent to an enormous research facility on the Moon to discover why communication with Earth has suddenly stopped.
It doesn’t take long before things go pear-shaped; a disaster leaves him stranded within the lunar base, and it turns out it’s filled with hostile robots commanded by an out-of-control AI program.
A mysterious android resembling a young girl saves Hugh’s skin, and the two quickly resolve to work together, figure out what’s going on, and find a way back to Earth.
Hugh and the android girl, Diana, combine their talents in combat to fend off the autonomous threats they face around every corner. Diana hacks the robots, opening up their armour, and Hugh destroys them with a variety of weapons and tools.
As the player, you perform both of these acts at once; at first it can feel a little disorienting to be moving and dodging as Hugh while you’re trying to hack as Diana, but once that beds in, it feels brilliantly dynamic and satisfying.
Hacking takes the form of a quick-fire mini game in which you use the face buttons to navigate a grid. To hack an enemy, you just need to reach the green square on the grid, but passing through blue ones leaves the enemy vulnerable for longer.
While hacking, you can still move Hugh around, enabling you to dodge attacking enemies, or get some distance if they’re too close.
The balance of hacking foes before shooting them to bits is excellent. There are numerous enemy types and the game loves to challenge you with all sorts of combinations, but no matter what’s thrown at you, the difficulty feels perfectly pitched.
Combat is intense, tactical, and playful, and the shooting itself is fantastic; guns feel powerful with great feedback. The shotgun-like Shockwave Gun is particularly punchy.
As you progress through the game, you unlock more and more weapons and hacking abilities that keep things fresh and equip you to deal with stronger opponents.
You can equip yellow hacking nodes that’ll appear in the grid, and passing through these enables all kinds of benefits; they can freeze enemies in place, force them to turn on other robots, or make them overheat faster.
When in that state, Hugh can deliver a powerful blow that more often than not finishes them off.
There’s a lot to sink your teeth into with the hack-and-shoot combat, which is good because you’ll be doing it a lot. While the action does evolve over time with a steady flow of unlocks, it can grow a little repetitive towards the end.
There are a few puzzles dotted throughout, but the emphasis is very much on the combat. It’s lucky it’s so satisfying to play, and fortunately it doesn’t overstay its welcome. The campaign will last you around 12 hours.
Periodically, you’ll find escape hatches that lead you to the shelter, a hub where you’re able to upgrade your gear, pick your loadout, and travel to previous locations you’ve visited.
While the relationship between Hugh and Diana develops as you play the game itself, it’s in the shelter where you can delve into this a little further, too.
As you explore, you may find Read Earth Memories, which spawn various Earth objects in the shelter for Diana to interact with. This can range from a small TV to a beach parasol, and although there’s no material benefit from getting these, it’s quite sweet watching her play with and ask questions about these items.
The dual protagonists are probably the best thing about the story, which does have an intriguing start and does answer the big questions by the end, but it mostly just sets up a reason to blast robots to bits and gets out of the way. There’s nothing really wrong with that, but without getting into spoilers, we were left a touch underwhelmed overall.
The lunar facility is made up of several large zones that loop back in on themselves in some clever ways. These areas are surprisingly diverse for a game set on the Moon; while it begins in grey, boxy corridors, more visually interesting places quickly follow.
Lunafilament, a material that can be used to recreate practically anything, means you’ll see environments replicating Manhattan-like cityscapes, or a lab filled with replica trees and greenery.
The zones are broadly quite linear, but there are lots of hidden areas and secrets to discover. You’re rewarded for exploring with all kinds of beneficial goodies, like cartridge holders that allow Hugh to heal more often, mods you can equip to enhance his abilities, and Lunafilament, which you’ll use to unlock and upgrade your gear.
You won’t be able to find everything in one passthrough, either; there are some obstacles you’ll have to return to later in the game, giving you some reasons to revisit previous locations.
It’d be nice if you could fast travel between the escape hatches; as it stands, you have to go back to the shelter any time you want to hop around, which is a bit cumbersome when you’re just searching for stuff.
Aside from that, though, this is a very thoughtfully designed game, one that focuses on a singular idea and executes on it wonderfully. It also feels refreshingly simple in its structure; it feels like a PS3 game in that sense, and that’s meant as a compliment.
It certainly doesn’t look old school, though. Pragmata looks great and runs very nicely. We played most of the game on ‘Prioritise Resolution’, and it runs at a near-constant 60 frames-per-second on a standard PS5.
‘Prioritise Frame Rate’ smooths it out even more, but the other mode runs almost as well without sacrificing any image quality.
PS5 Pro users have even less to worry about. The game’s image quality is of course improved and it runs at a rock solid frame rate. There’s an option for a higher frame rate mode, but you’ll probably only see the benefit of that if you have a 120hz display.
