Diana is the titular Pragmata robot that aids Hugh in order to survive the Cradle.

Capcom

One of the most interesting third-person shooters of recent years is finally here, and Pragmata is even better than I could have hoped for.

Set on the moon in the future, Hugh and his team arrive at the Cradle to do some maintenance, but find the massive base deserted. A moonquake hits shortly thereafter, and Hugh is separated from his team.

The Cradle is also no ordinary base, as it mines and uses lunafilament to create all manner of objects via a version of futuristic 3D printing.

Overseeing all of this is the now corrupted AI called IDUS, which spawns all manner of robots to take out Hugh.

Thankfully, Hugh meets a Pragmata robot of a small girl, whom he calls Diana. Thankfully, she is able to hack said robots and allow Hugh to blow them to pieces.

The main thrust of the gameplay has you “hack” via filling in a puzzle via the face buttons as the enemy robot looms towards you. Once successful, the robot is then in its “open” and thus vulnerable state, which allows your weapons to damage it.

The weapons are split across four main categories: your staple pistol, which upgrades to a carbine later on. This regenerates ammo and is your mainstay weapon for most encounters. Following that, you have your offensive weapons, which do much larger chunks of damage and have a finite ammo count. Then there are what I could call “crowd control” weapons, that either knock enemies down or stun them in place. Finally, there are the support weapons, like decoys, drones, and defensive barriers.

All of these are set up before missions in the hub area called the Shelter. This is also where you can upgrade your suit, weapons, and the vast array of mods available.

Mods are the additional elements that are injected into the hacking setup, and they are finite in use but can affect things like an enemy’s defense or having it attack other enemies for you.

In the Shelter, you also have an additional and thoroughly adorable robot called Cabin, which offers more unlocks and also access to the fiendishly challenging Training Simulator. The latter also affords a lot of upgrades if completed successfully.

The game is split across multiple large areas, with an additional area unlocked after completing the game. The areas are expansive but have lots of points where you can return to the Shelter and upgrade your abilities and replenish your health.

While you do start out with a repair function, the early parts of the game are quite challenging, and it’s recommended that you go back to the Shelter often to recover. The game is built around this, though, and you can tackle the various large areas in smaller chunks.

Exploration and level design are great, with a lot of fun verticality with the latter. Lots of upgrades are also teased across each area, and figuring out the route to reach them is always engaging.

The combat also gets a lot more varied and intense as the game progresses, and managing the crowd of robots intent on your demise is very involving in a tactical sense.

The only criticisms I have, and they are minor, are that the visual complexity can be a bit overwhelming and takes a while to get used to. This does initially impact the game’s messaging and figuring out your path through levels, but you do eventually adjust to this.

In addition, while there is technically a map and an area scan function, the lack of a proper 3D map feels like an oversight. Something like the map setup in Metroid Prime comes to mind, but I still managed to find all the secrets in each area without this

Bosses are also massive and really involved, with a lot of variety throughout, and taking one down successfully is immensely satisfying.

You also have areas outside the Cradle where the gravity is a lot less, so boosting around is more floaty and fun.

In general, as a mecha nerd, I also thought the mecha design was great throughout. From all the enemy robots, to Hugh’s spacesuit, which is effectively a pretty potent power armor in terms of its ability set. I wouldn’t say that this is a full-on mecha game, but there are lots of mecha gaming elements dotted throughout, which makes this game quite a bit different from its competitors.

The story, as well as the interactions between Hugh and Diana, are also really well done. The narrative also relies a lot on the environment as well as various logs and e-mails dotted around the game world, and it all links together very well.

Overall, Pragmata is a very fresh take on a modern third-person shooter, with a unique combat setup that is equal parts tactics and brute force skill. It also looks wonderful throughout, and the interactions between Hugh, Diana, and Cabin are a lot of fun and genuinely sweet. It may be a bit too early to call, but thus far, this is easily my game of the year.

Pragmata

Platform: PlayStation 5 (Reviewed), Switch 2, Xbox Series X|S, PC

Developer: Capcom

Publisher: Capcom

Released: 17th April 2026

Price: $59.99

Score: 9/10

Disclosure: Capcom sent me a copy of this game for the purposes of this review.

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