Pragmata is part puzzle game, part sci-fi shooter, and all a surprising amount of fun

I had no idea what to expect when I walked into my Pragmata hands-on session ahead of Gamescom 2025.

Its bizarre announcement trailer made quite an impression back at the 2020 PlayStation 5 reveal event, but years of radio silence and one missed release window had me wondering whether the game had been quietly shelved. Thankfully, a surprise second trailer back in June confirmed that developer Capcom was still hard at work and promised that it would finally release in 2026.

Still, these two cinematic videos didn’t really shed much light on what Pragmata actually is, and, having played roughly twenty minutes for myself, I think I know why.

Puzzle fighter

A screenshot from sci-fi game Pragmata — (Image credit: Capcom)

Pragmata is simply one of those games that is far more fun to play than it looks.

A bold mash-up of third-person shooter and puzzle game mechanics, it challenges you to complete a little ‘join the dots’ style mini-game as you maneuver around the environment and take pot shots at incoming foes. That description alone probably has you envisioning something incredibly clunky and weird, but I promise you that it really works.

The shooting plays out like your typical sci-fi action game: move with the thumbsticks and aim and fire with the triggers. As you shoot, however, a little square display pops up on screen, arranged into a small grid. It’s filled with a set of icons that you can join together using the d-pad as you try to reach a specific endpoint.

Each completed screen provides a big burst of damage, chewing through enemy health bars far faster than your basic laser pistol.

It’s a formula that is surprisingly engaging as it requires a fair amount of attention – imagine playing a modern Resident Evil with one hand and a game of Candy Crush on your phone in the other.

You can collect special nodes too, basically power-ups, that add new icons to the grid, boasting a range of handy effects like reducing the enemy’s defensive capabilities to increasing the damage from your weapons. I didn’t experience many of these in my short hands-on, but I’m interested to see what kind of impactful effects they’ll provide in the full game.

On top of the nodes, I also had a few unique weapons to play around with. This included a powerful futuristic shotgun that dealt huge amounts of damage up close, but was a tad slower and more unwieldy.

The higher damage made it much quicker to defeat each foe, but unlike your pistol, it had a very limited pool of ammunition, so it is far from a permanent upgrade.

Dynamic duo

Pragmata is set on a distant lunar base where you, an astronaut named Hugh, have been stranded after some kind of accident. Built in RE Engine, the narrow corridors and rooms that you explore look absolutely stunning.

With an abundance of grimy horror games like Dead Space, The Callisto Protocol, and the upcoming Cronos: The New Dawn set in similar locales, I really appreciate just how bright and shiny everything looks.

Tonally, Pragmata doesn’t seem like it’s trying to be frightening at all which is quite refreshing and helps direct all your focus towards the puzzles rather than distracting scares. Even its antagonists, security androids gone rogue, are pristine with an almost white, plastic appearance that manages to be wholly unintimidating even though they’re literally trying to kill you.

I was a little unsettled by Hugh’s companion, the child-like robot Diana, at first, but the pair has a surprisingly amusing dynamic. Having rescued Hugh at the start of the game, Diana hangs from his back, providing combat support and plenty of endearing interactions. She’s very naive and a great foil to the more sarcastic and grizzled playable character.

My hands-on experience culminated in a fight against a massive robot mech, which appears right after Diana’s overdrive ability is introduced. She has a gauge that you fill in combat and then use to trigger a massive stun, which proved invaluable against such a strong adversary.

I would have loved the chance to experience even more of Pragmata, in particular if that meant seeing some of the more psychedelic scenes teased by the trailers, but I will say that I am now completely sold.