Capcom already has a packed 2026, with at the least three main sequels — Resident Evil Requiem, Onimusha: Means of the Sword, and Monster Hunter Tales 3 — set to overshadow its long-in-development Pragmata, one thing brand-new from the corporate. However followers of motion video games ought to hold a detailed eye on Capcom’s sci-fi shooter, which brings some intriguing twists to the third-person shooter components.
gamexplore performed Pragmata earlier this summer season, and government editor Matt Patches already delivered a glowing preview of the sport. He known as Pragmata “a blast” (correct) and stated its “fluid, frictionless demo supplied a combat-forward third-person shooter expertise that felt completely contemporary.” I acquired to play a barely prolonged model of that demo, which Capcom is displaying at Gamescom this week, and whereas all of it however confirmed Pragmata was undoubtedly not a secret Mega Man recreation, it actually left me wanting extra.
As beforehand famous, the twin protagonist workforce of spaceman Hugh Williams and little woman android Diana mix their powers to make each encounter in Pragmata half puzzle, half shooter. There’s a whole lot of fast considering on the fly, not simply cautious aiming and enemy administration, as the 2 discover the area station often known as the Cradle, the place robots gone haywire run amok. Whereas Hugh has an arsenal of weapons at his disposal, he depends on Diana to hack their enemies to make them sufficiently susceptible to assault.
Every encounter includes some mixture of Diana’s (fairly enjoyable) hacking minigame and switching to the perfect firearm in Hugh’s stock. Along with an ordinary rifle that slowly recharges its ammunition, Hugh may also make the most of a Shockwave Gun that acts like a futuristic shotgun for close-range destruction and a Stasis Internet that hinders motion. Mainly, an encounter with a number of enemy bots may contain hacking one, stasising one other, going ham on the hacked one at shut vary, taking a breath, and transferring on to your subsequent goal. Rinse and repeat.
The place Pragmata’s fight encounters get extra attention-grabbing are within the limitations of Hugh’s weapons and in power-ups for Diana’s hacking minigame. Most of Hugh’s weapons have very restricted ammo, and whereas a few of that may slowly recharge, gamers might wish to deliberately deplete a gun’s ammo — inflicting it to self-destruct — and seize one other absolutely loaded one. As somebody who identifies as a persistent reloader (hearth one shot, reload, repeat) in video games, the thought of rigorously managing ammo shares and mainly throwing away a spent weapon took some getting used to. But it surely was additionally very enjoyable, strategically talking.
Diana’s hacking minigame is straightforward, however below stress, it will probably really feel daunting. You’re form of taking part in a high-speed recreation of Snake, transferring a line by way of a grid known as the Hacking Matrix: crossing over blue squares, avoiding crimson squares, and finally touchdown on the inexperienced sq.. Hugh may also discover consumable power-ups known as Hack Nodes for Diana’s hacking puzzles, including yellow squares that amp up the energy of her hacks. Once more, these must be strategically used; throughout a boss battle, I regretted squandering my Hack Nodes in a struggle main as much as the boss.
Diana’s hacking prowess has one other layer. As a gauge fills up throughout battles, Diana can have interaction the Overdrive Protocol, giving her the flexibility to concurrently hack a number of enemies, forcibly opening up their armor and briefly halting their motion. Once more, saving this tremendous transfer for the proper second seems essential to surviving sure battles.
The Pragmata demo that I performed culminated in a boss struggle towards the large safety bot often known as SectorGuard. Because it approached, I nonetheless had a shred of suspicion that Pragmata had Mega Man DNA, however when SectorGuard was launched and regarded nothing just like the Yellow Satan, I resigned myself to the reality. Pragmata is its personal factor. (Good!)
The battle towards SectorGuard pressured me to make use of each facet of Hugh and Diana’s toolkit. After utilizing Hugh’s boosters to dodge SectorGuard’s cost towards us, I had Diana hack the machine, then put it right into a stasis bubble, and unloaded a number of Shockwave blasts into its dorsal weak spot. I churned by way of a number of weapons as I depleted them of their ammo, sprinted across the battle zone to search out power-ups and absolutely loaded weapons, then repeated my hack-shoot-hack-shoot sample to (simply barely) take SectorGuard down.
There’s all the time the possibility that Pragmata’s mixture of hacking puzzles and third-person capturing is one thing just like the Pepsi problem: finest in small doses, cloying in the long term. However Pragmata’s capturing and the gameplay sides that encompass it are extremely enjoyable at first blush. It’s actually shot to the highest of my listing of most anticipated video games coming subsequent yr, and I believe it needs to be on yours too.
Pragmata is coming to PlayStation 5, Home windows PC, and Xbox Collection X someday in 2026.
