Dad Space
HIGH A genuinely inventive take on third-person combat.
LOW Sharon, the universe’s least likable datalog litterer.
WTF Hugh is absolutely terrible at catching basketballs.
Ladies, meet hot, single astronaut ‘smoldering’ Hugh Williams.
Hugh’s got a high-flying profession as an aeronautical engineer and jets off on a mission to the moon with a group of his hunky engineer buddies to sort out problems related to a massive Lunafilament installation — a device capable of 3D printing just about anything the Delphi corporation needs to power their research colony full of scientific marvels and eggheaded boffins.
The job goes off completely without a hitch, and Hugh safely returns to Earth soon after. The end.
Oops, my mistake! What actually happens is that Hugh’s team gets wiped out as soon as they arrive by a bloodthirsty rogue AI and the legions of murderous automatons under its control. It’s revealed that these mechanical bastards have already killed everyone on the station, and they’re not open for more visitors.
Fortunately, that’s where Diana comes in. A super-advanced android known as a “Pragmata” built in the form of a young girl, she waddles in and saves the day, rescuing Hugh and filling in a few of the blanks about what happened. However, she doesn’t have all the answers as to why the AI started killing everyone, and it becomes apparent that if they don’t team up, neither is going to survive for long.
Pragmata isn’t shy about leaning hard into the dad-and-daughter dynamic that emerges between Hugh and Diana, which makes sense given that the game is essentially an extended piggyback simulator — albeit one with a lot more hacking and shotgun blasts to the face than usual.
The relationship between the pair is successfully endearing because, unlike many other titles with children in them, Diana’s not a sanctimonious little twerp determined to become his new moral compass. She’s just a weird little kid who wants to play with toys, learn about the world and go on an adventure with her new best pal Hugh, slaying hordes of robots as they go. Hugh himself isn’t insanely charismatic, but he works by virtue of simply being a super nice and earnest dude.
The combat in Pragmata is a little different from most realtime third-person action. While Hugh is able to shoot robots with his self-recharging pistol or various weapons found around the lunar colony, he can’t do any significant damage to them unless Diana first hacks into their systems and forces them to open up their armored shells, thereby exposing weak points.
This additional layer to combat is unique, but also extremely intuitive. Every time Hugh aims at an enemy, Diana’s hacking grid snaps into play. The face buttons let players weave a cursor around said grid, directing it through various nodes before and finally hitting the ‘enter’ command. These nodes come in various flavors, some applying specific effects to ‘bots, some keep weak points exposed for longer, and others do things like can chain the hack to nearby enemies or increase the damage multiplier.
Hugh and Diana constantly find new weapons and upgrades to modify the hacking mechanic, and enemies will sometimes interfere with the process, blocking off sections of the grid until sensors on their body are destroyed, or obstacles might pop up on the grid itself, kicking Diana out if she trips them.
While it’s easy to hack in one-on-one duels, things get hectic under pressure. Taking on groups of murderbots requires keen reaction timing and the ability to adapt on the fly, while also utilizing an arsenal that includes decoys, traps and shields alongside more common weapons like shotguns and rocket launchers. It all feels great, and these encounters are bolstered by satisfyingly chunky weapon impacts that shatter foes apart and a cool (but repetitive) finisher for stunned opponents.
The moon base where the action takes place has a reasonably varied amount of environments to traipse through, with each main area usually having a particular theme. The initial area is clean and sterile in a PN03/Apple store sort of way, but by area two the scientists have apparently grown bored and decided to fabricate a series of unexpectedly elaborate biomes more or less for the hell of it. There’s also a fair amount of verticality to environments, as well as loads of secrets to find through exploration and puzzle solving.
The only real misstep here is a yawnsome box-shoving warehouse where large containers need to be hacked and stacked in a way that allows for progress. Maybe it’s me, but I had a real dislike for this section, brief as it was.
Between missions, our dynamic duo can take a break in the Shelter, a sweet-looking home base that allows them to use materials they find in the field to level up their stats and weapons. It starts out quite basic, but before long there are VR training missions, a rad smartphone-faced companion who dispenses goodies, and various outfits and collectables for Diana to mess around with. While this hub is great, it’s unfortunate that there’s no ‘quick resupply’ option while in the field. Basic functions such as healing or restocking ammo require a trip back to the Shelter each time, along with a few loading screens.
For those who want to maximize the experience after rolling credits, Pragmata also includes fairly substantial endgame after initial completion — it feels a bit like pre-loaded DLC. It’s absolutely worth playing and challenges players in new ways while rewarding them with various other goodies as they progress, topped by a satisfying payoff for completing all tasks. That said, I did feel some burnout creeping in while hunting down the few remaining secrets in this endgame content.
In the end, Pragmata is a great new IP from Capcom. It’s endearing, it offers a unique and satisfying take on third-person combat, and also boasts plenty of scope for exploration, impressive bosses, rewarding payoffs and a significant amount of built-in postgame content. What more could someone ask for?
Rating: 8 out of 10
Disclosures: This game is developed and published by Capcom. It is currently available on XBX/S, PS5, Switch 2 and PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the XBX. Approximately 20 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. There are no multiplayer modes.
Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated T and contains Language and Violence. The official description reads: Pragmata is rated T for Teen by the ESRB with Language and Violence. Also includes In-Game Purchases. This is an adventure game in which players assume the role of a human sent to investigate issues on a moon base. From a third-person perspective, players explore the base, solve puzzles, and engage in combat with robot enemies. Players use shock guns, pulse carbines, blasters, and sticky bombs to defeat enemies. Battles are frenetic, accompanied by gunfire, explosions, and robots bursting apart. Some environments depict corpses on the ground. One fantastical cutscene depicts a childlike android getting impaled. The word “sh*t” appears in the game.
Colorblind Modes: Colorblind modes are present. Players can choose which colors onscreen components such as the reticules and subtitles show up as.
Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game offers subtitles. The subtitles can be altered and/ or resized. There are also options such as closed captioning to make it easier to detect the source of ambient noises in the environment. With all options enabled, this game is fully accessible.
Remappable Controls: Certain functions are remappable. Jumping and hovering is usually set to A. Scanning is set to X. Healing is set to B, and interacting with or picking things up are set to Y. These are all interchangeable. Other functions such as aiming with LT, navigating the hacking grid via the face buttons or thruster-dashing with R1 are unable to be remapped.
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