PRAGMATA

The Setup

The game takes place on The Cradle, a remote lunar research facility run by the Delphi Corporation, where humanity has been experimenting with Lunafilament — a material capable of 3D-printing almost anything given the right data. When the station goes dark, an investigation team is sent up. They don't last long. Astronaut Hugh Williams survives the initial disaster, barely, and almost immediately crosses paths with Diana — a Pragmata android built from Lunafilament who looks and behaves like an eight-year-old girl, and who has the ability to hack every hostile system on the base. The station's rogue AI, IDUS, wants them both gone. The game is their attempt to get home.

What sounds like a familiar setup — stoic soldier, precocious AI child, collapsing corporate dystopia — is executed with more care than you'd expect. Hugh is warm, not dour. He immediately treats Diana as a partner rather than cargo, naming her, explaining things about Earth she's curious about, and genuinely enjoying her company. Their banter never overstays its welcome, and the quiet Shelter scenes between missions where Diana asks Hugh about sandcastles and butterflies are some of the most quietly affecting moments in games this year.

The Combat: Something Nobody Has Done Before

Pragmata's combat is its defining innovation. Hugh handles the shooting. Diana handles the hacking. You control both simultaneously.

Every hostile robot on the station is protected by an armoured shell that makes standard gunfire almost useless. While you're moving, dodging, and managing ammunition, Diana's hacking matrix appears as a two-dimensional grid beside each enemy — navigated with the face buttons. You route through nodes to expose weak points, disable shields, or trigger special effects like confusion or friendly fire. The key is that neither system pauses for the other. You're tracking enemy positions, managing positioning via Hugh's jetpack, and reading the grid simultaneously. It's an exhilarating, slightly absurd juggling act that feels unlike anything in the third-person action space.

Capcom keeps adding complexity throughout the game's 12-hour runtime. New grid node types introduce confusion effects, ally-conversion, shield bypass, and area bursts. Hugh's arsenal expands from a humble six-shot sidearm into an impressive battery of energy weapons, railguns, and the spectacular Lim Recycler — a weapon that converts enemy projectiles into damage. Boss encounters push the dual-system to its limits, demanding that you master both halves before you can reliably win.

The Shelter and Progression

Between missions, Hugh and Diana return to the Shelter — a safe hub where you spend Lunafilament to print new weapons, upgrade hacking nodes, and unlock abilities. It also functions as the emotional core of the game: this is where most of the quieter character scenes play out, including Diana's drawings, the hide-and-seek sequence, and the memory exchanges that gradually reveal the station's backstory. Upgrade management is flexible, with builds favouring either gunplay intensity or hacking depth, and the system rewards revisiting the Shelter frequently rather than hoarding resources.

The World and Exploration

The Cradle is a mostly linear space, but Capcom has packed each sector with hidden rooms, combat challenges, data logs, Holo-Walls, and Mini Cabins that reward careful exploration. The in-game map is notoriously unhelpful — a valid criticism — but the radar ping system that highlights nearby items does enough to compensate once you get used to using it. Each sector has a completion percentage displayed in the menu, so you always know when you've been thorough enough. The standout environments include a pitch-perfect simulacrum of a New York City block (deliberately distorted and uncanny, entirely hand-crafted to look AI-generated without actually using AI) and a holographic beach shoreline that doubles as an emotional gut-punch.

Story and Characters

The story's plot beats are largely predictable — there are no shocking twists, and the corporate-AI-gone-wrong premise is well-worn territory. What makes Pragmata's narrative land anyway is the restraint and warmth of its central relationship. Hugh and Diana are simply written, but genuinely well performed. David Menkin voices Hugh with a grounded sincerity that avoids tough-guy clichés, and Grace Saif gives Diana a quality that could easily have been insufferable but instead lands as charming and occasionally heartbreaking. The secret ending — only accessible at 101% completion — recontextualises one key detail in a way that makes the second viewing of the finale considerably more meaningful.

The one legitimate complaint is Diana's tendency to over-explain during encounters. She flags enemy positions and puzzle solutions loudly and constantly, interrupting moments that should feel self-discovered. It is, as one reviewer noted, more aggressive hand-holding than Atreus in God of War Ragnarök. A toggle would fix it instantly; hopefully it comes in a patch.

Difficulty: 6/10 — Estimated Time: 30–50 hours — Missable Trophies: 1 — Online Required: No — Minimum Playthroughs: 2

Pragmata's Platinum is earned in two structured playthroughs. The list is tighter and more focused than most modern Capcoms — 36 trophies total, a healthy chunk unlocking naturally through the story. The main challenge is the Gold Lunar Supremacy trophy, which requires completing the game on Lunatic difficulty. This isn't unlockable in New Game+, so you must run a dedicated Lunatic campaign from scratch.