A few months ago, my list of hotly anticipated games for 2026 consisted predominantly of Triple-A franchises like Fable, Tomb Raider: Legacy of Atlantis, Pokopia, and 007 First Light, as well as a few smaller releases like Hela and Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream. That has been turned entirely on its head since trying Pragmata at a recent Nintendo Switch 2 demo event.
Part action, part puzzle, and entirely arcade-esque, Pragmata follows Hugh, a human sent to investigate disruptions on a space station, and Diana, a child-like android with the ability to hack into the station’s systems.
This proves useful quickly, because as it turns out, the rest of the androids unboard are far less friendly, and she’ll need to weaken them with her technical abilities so that Hugh can blast them to smithereens.
It’s a surprisingly easy system to get your head around and great fun to play, but most notably, it feels right at home on the Nintendo Switch 2.
Papa, can you hear me?
We’re pretty used to seeing games featuring a father-child (typically daughter) relationship; The Last of Us, Death Stranding, and The Evil Within 2 all spring to mind. None of the games listed there are presently available on the Switch 2, however, and the classic sad dad formula is turned somewhat on its head by what we know so far of Pragmata’s protagonists, Hugh and Diana.
Instead of a surrogate for some loss the male protagonist has experienced, Diana appears to more immediately take on an equal role to Hugh, functioning as a nerf machine for the oncoming waves of android attackers. From her tactical piggyback position, she can target robots and hack them via simple pathfinding puzzles, ready for Hugh to blast them. We’ve covered the same demo experience during Summer Games Fest last year, and now it’s available to the public, so make sure to check that out if you want the full ins and outs of its gameplay.
What I’m far more impressed and intrigued by is how well it runs on the Switch 2. I played the short demo through twice, playing in docked mode with a Switch 2 Pro controller, and I was immediately impressed with the visual fidelity.
Much like Resident Evil Requiem, which I tried on the same day, there’s an unavoidable concession when playing on the Switch 2’s less powerful hardware, but it’s negated by Capcom’s optimization and RE Engine. Textures are stiffer and less detailed, with hair and light more closely resembling graphics from later last-generation games played on the PlayStation 4 or Xbox One, but it ran smoothly and was a delight to play, enough so to sell me on a game I hadn’t had any particular interest in beforehand.
Naturally, the graphics are going to drop even further when you play in handheld mode, but I think that’s absolutely the sacrifice anyone excited to play Pragmata should make.
I wanna hold your hand(held mode)
There are a lot of games I love in handheld mode, and a vast majority of them are arcade-like in nature; the form factor really lends itself to short, engaging gameplay loops with relatively simple controls and less reliance on attention to detail. By proxy, a lot of what I play in handheld mode comes from indie developers, but Pragmata is set to break that mold.
From what I’ve played so far, its gameplay loop feels like it could really lend itself to portable play, and it’s all down to pacing. As Pragmata director Cho Yonghee said in an interview with Eurogamer, there’s a real rhythm to it as you hack, dash, and shoot at oncoming enemies, and I can easily imagine myself whiling away a long and dull train journey with Pragmata in hand.
The “Sketchbook” demo mechanic may well have no real bearing on the final game, but it’d feel doubly well-suited for handheld mode if the gameplay loop is similar to the 15-minute cycle with unlockable endings.
Plus, the brightness of the spaceship environment, the white lighting, and more dynamic visuals of Pragmata feel far better suited to a handheld Switch 2, and doubly so when compared to Resident Evil Requiem, which I fear may struggle in its dimness.
Overall, and if early rumors and updates about its development prove true, Pragmata could well create a genre in itself – another trait it stands to share with Death Stranding. It feels really exciting to have a game like that, with such potential to completely dominate my free time, due to release on a console I can play wherever I please – and to top it all off, there’s no delay on the port, as it releases alongside the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, Series S, and PC on April 24.
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josephine.watson@futurenet.com (Josephine Watson)
