Despite being set on the moon, Pragmata drew me in with the gravity of a sun. Its polished gameplay, eye-catching visuals, and endearing characters made for a compelling experience. The fortuitous timing of NASA’s Artemis II moon mission also helped; I had space on the brain!
Pragmata
The game opens on a crew of ‘space-fixers’ arriving at The Cradle, a moonbase home to a humongous 3D printer. It’s not clear why they’re there exactly, only that communication has been lost with Earth. From the get-go something feels off, and it doesn’t take long for shit to hit the fan. After a destructive moon-quake, the protagonist Hugh is saved by a little android girl, D-I-0336-7… Who he later nicknames ‘Diana’.
Diana is a Pragmata, an AI in an Android body, and while the game goes out of its way to let you know that Hugh doesn’t really like kids OR robots, they pretty much get on like a house on fire from the get-go. The unlikely duo set off through the damaged research facility, searching for a way to contact Earth.
Despite being a powerful system-hacking android, Diana is still essentially a naive child, abandoned on a space station. Hugh, growing up an orphan, resonates with her on that level and they develop a friendship that feels genuine — without entering the well-worn territory of the ‘you remind me of my daughter’ trope.
The story is relatively straightforward and predictable, but the fantastic setting and lovable characters make the journey worthwhile.
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The Loop
Much like the story, the gameplay loop is a simple one, honed to a razor edge. You explore linear areas, hacking various terminals to unlock a big door, shooting robots in the face along the way. Through the door will be a boss and a chunk of story. Rinse and repeat. Straightforward, but it really works.
There’s also some light platforming in places which makes use of the thrusters on Hugh’s space suit, which FYI has one of the coolest looking helmets since Master Chief. The thrusters don’t last very long at first and platforming can feel floaty and inaccurate, which can get pretty frustrating during a time-trial training exercise.
Hugh and Diana have a hub they can retreat to for a breather, called The Shelter. Here you can upgrade your guns and abilities, unlock new mods, and adjust your loadout before heading out again. It’s also a place where you can chat to Diana, 3D print her presents with blueprints found around the station, and perform training exercises thanks to a little robot caretaker.
There are a generous amount of escape hatches around the station that lead back to the hub. While using them will respawn most enemies you’ve killed, it means you can refill your healing items and adjust your loadout, before heading back to any hatch you’ve already unlocked. It feels like an action-adventure meets extraction-shooter in some ways: you pick your loadout, run through part of the level gathering resources, and then extract out to regroup.
The Cradle
The purpose of the research station is to mine a rare mineral called lunum, which can be used to 3D print almost anything. In their experiments with the skyscraper-sized 3D printer, the scientists have recreated environments from home, like an entire section of New York City! So not only are you exploring a futuristic space station, but city sections, forested areas, and the low-grav lunar surface itself.
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There are also times where the game borrows from its CAPCOM cousin Resident Evil, leaning into horror vibes. As you creep down dark hallways that spark with electrical damage, enemies can jump-scare you out of the shadows, keeping you on edge.
There are even these spider-like enemies that are almost completely invisible; more than once I thought I was safe as I walked up to loot a chest, until I spotted a very slight distortion next to me. Spidey-sense activated, I’d boost backward with my thrusters, just narrowly avoiding being bashed by a robotic limb. Sneaky little pests.
Boss battles are another highlight. Adrenaline-pumping, over-the-top firefights against massive killer robots that throw everything they have at you: scorching lasers, rocket boosted shoulder charges, explosions that rock the battlefield… They’re a whole lot of fun.
Hack and Blast
Pragmata gives you plenty of weapons to blast apart your foes in intense gunplay, but the games’ secret sauce is its real-time hacking, which exposes enemy weaknesses and lets you deal some REAL damage.
When you aim your weapon at an enemy (and you’re within hacking range) a small grid will appear like a pop-up ad. You navigate the grid using the face buttons on your controller, to reach the node that will complete the hack. You do this in real-time as you’re being approached or attacked, and often have to decide between breaking off a hack and boosting away, or finishing it and taking the hit.
There are other nodes on the grid that effect the hack, like adding extra damage or paralysing the enemy, while others can even slow you down or cause the hack to fail.
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It gets a lot more complicated when there are multiple enemies on the field, especially when some are firing ranged attacks and others are moving into melee. I really liked using the charge rifle as I could be charging up my shot and navigating the grid at the same time, then firing off an energy attack as soon as the hack was complete.
Is Pragmata worth your time?
Pragmata is a simple game with a simple story, wrapped up in a fantastic setting. The mixture of high-energy gunplay and real-time hacking felt like a truly unique twist on combat. It’s a shorter experience, around 10 to 15 hours, but what it does in that time is well worth the price of admission.
CAPCOM is on a tear of late, with the success of Resident Evil 9, Monster Hunter Stories 3 and now Pragmata; they’ve quickly become the publisher to beat.
Quest Daily scores Pragmata:
8.5/10
Pragmata releases on the 17th of April for PlayStation 5, PC, Nintendo Switch 2 and Xbox Series X|S.
A review copy of Pragmata was supplied to Quest Daily for the purpose of this review.
