Pragmata feels like an instance of parallel thinking with Helldivers 2. Last year’s hit multiplayer game was lauded for lots of reasons, but not least because of its strategems mechanic–demanding you input a complex series of button presses in the heat of combat. Pragmata, the third-person single-player shooter from Capcom, probably wasn’t directly inspired by that game, but they represent similar approaches. Central to Pragmata’s combat is the ability to hack your robotic opponents to make them vulnerable to attack, which in practice means frantically inputting buttons while androids bear down on you. It’s a neat hook, and one that feels distinct from Helldivers’ take thanks to its own puzzle format.
Hacking requires navigating across a square grid–at least, every one I saw was square–with the controller’s face buttons representing the cardinal directions to move toward the goal. So if your starting point is in the top-left corner of a 3×3 grid, and the goal node is center-right, you could hit X, Circle, Circle to reach the goal and take down the enemy defenses, after which they’re vulnerable to attack. The puzzle interface pops up next to enemies automatically when you aim down sights, so you’re still moving and even able to shoot while solving the puzzle, requiring some tense mental juggling.
But the hacking puzzles are further complicated by special nodes–power-ups that stack if you pass through them, and blocks that you need to navigate around. The puzzles are also another way to differentiate the difficulty of enemies. Small buzzing flyers had the 3×3 grid, while larger humanoid walkers had 4×4 grids. I would imagine even larger enemies or bosses could expand the grid size even more.
The result is an unusually dynamic type of shooter that tickles different parts of your brain at the same time. Can you solve the puzzle before this robot closes the gap or should put some distance between you first? Is this enemy deadly enough that you should abandon a nearly-complete hack and dodge out of the way? You can pick up other special nodes with limited uses as well, suggesting even more wrinkles to come.
Hugh is an astronaut who finds himself isolated on a base crawling with killer robots, while Diana is the enigmatic child android he discovers. It would be accurate to say that Hugh is the main protagonist and Diana is a companion character, but it would be more accurate to say that you’re actually playing both of them at the same time. Diana hangs off Hugh’s back like Clank to his Ratchet, and when you initiate a hack you are controlling her actions, not his. Hugh, meanwhile, is responsible for moving around the world and firing your weapons.
And those weapons, naturally, help further differentiate your combat choices. The demo I played only had three–a simple pistol-like weapon that could be used at range, a shotgun-like blast weapon with big stopping power at short range, and an area-of-effect weapon that created a bubble to slow enemies. In their own ways, each represented the central push and pull of Pragmata’s combat, which felt fundamentally about carefully managing enemy encounters. Will your weapon slow an opponent down enough to buy you extra time for the hack? Should you take a hit to finish a hack and then try to finish them off quickly? These moments lead to some satisfying tension, even pitted against easier enemies.
Meanwhile, Pragmata’s presentation, both visually and narratively, blends Capcom’s fondness for anime melodrama with grounded near-future sci-fi tropes. Diana is a precocious and adorable little android with powers, while Hugh is the archetypal hero. The setting is full of clean white plasticine hallways, while Hugh’s suit and some of the piping use the bulky white and primary colors of actual NASA gear. Some of the early environments I saw can look a little sterile, but that seems by design.
But the real hook of Pragmata will naturally be the combat, which has me intrigued enough to want more. The tension between the gunplay and hacking feels like fertile soil for a distinct third-person shooter experience, with lots of room to expand with both different suites of weapons and new wrinkles to the hacking puzzles. I’m especially curious to see what a late-game combat encounter would look like, once Hugh and Diana have amassed a wide array of weapons and hacking tools, and the enemies have grown more sophisticated. That potential alone makes this game one to watch.
Pragmata is coming to PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S in 2026.
