While Pragmata might be Capcom’s latest hit, its development wasn’t all fun and games. As caught by Automaton Media, the game’s developers revealed some of the scathing feedback they got during its early development during a recent Japanese livestream. Work on the project started all the way back in 2019, with Capcom Development Division 1 boss Jun Takeuchi wanting the company’s younger developers to make “a game on the Moon.”
This early period was marked with quite a few problems, however, including pitches and concepts that didn’t end up going anywhere. Eventually, we would get an official announcement trailer in 2020. Despite this, the developers were facing quite a bit of criticism for the test stages that they had developed, each one getting rejected.
According to the developers, they got internal feedback noting that they were “unable to make compelling puzzles” and “unable to make compelling action”, which meant that they were “incompetent at level design.” This feedback would then lead to the creation of Pragmata’s signature hacking system, which led to its own variety of problems.
Some of the negative reviews they got during testing included the game logic being “completely broken”. One review said that the developers should “Give me back the 2 months I lost working alongside the team. Is this what you’re trying to entertain your players with?” Another believed that the hacking system “has fundamentally worsened the game.” Yet another said that it “feels like you’re just aimlessly moving forward – so boring.”
Despite the harsh nature of this feedback, the development team would then rush to make a new build of Pragmata that could be presented to the company’s upper management, with the goal of the meeting being to decide whether the project is worth taking forward or if it should be cancelled. In a fortunate turn of events, Capcom decided to go ahead with it, giving the team the chance to restart development.
Interestingly, director Yonghee Cho has expressed some regret at having unveiled Pragmata so early. While the title was originally slated for a 2022 release, Capcom had to push it back several times before it finally came out earlier this year on PC, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch 2.
“When we made that initial announcement trailer, we honestly did not expect user interest to be as high as it was,” said Cho. “Of course, the dev team wanted to make a good, fun game. But when we saw the player reaction and expectations, we realized making just a good game is now no longer enough. We have to make something that’s even better than we initially imagined.”
Thanks to its overall success, with more than 2 million copies being sold in just 16 days of release, Capcom has expressed some interest in a potential sequel to Pragmata. In its recent earnings report, the company said that the project worked out well thanks to its younger developers working alongside more experienced ones. “Based on this strong start, we will continue our analysis and consider the possibility of developing it into a series,” noted the company.
For more on Pragmata, take a look at our review.
