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Pragmata manages to set itself apart from other 3rd-person shooters and provides players with a touching story.
With Capcom, a AAA developer has dared to do surprise us for a change. Pragmata’s unique blend of simultaneously shooting and hacking feels refreshing, and works quite well. This unique mechanic, however, will determine whether Pragmata is for you or not.
In Pragmata, we take on the role of Hugh Williams who is sent to the moon following a breakdown of radio communication. As part of a team, we’re tasked with investigating the situation. As the automatic landing system isn’t working, we have to manage the landing on our own. While we’re gradually introduced into the game’s mechanics and story, we strangely don’t encounter another soul on the station, reminiscent of System Shock and Alien Isolation. A moonquake separates us from our fellow crew members.
Upon awaking, battered by our injuries, we realize a little girl has saved us. We have barely any time to process what’s happened before getting attacked. An AI named IDUS commands a bot to remove us from the compound. During this fight, we’re barely dealing any damage to the bot. Here’s where the girl’s special abilities come into play – a sort of “second screen” ability to enable players to hack while simultaneously shooting. Once a bot has been successfully hacked, it can be damaged and eliminated. In the following cutscene, we land and learn who our companion really is – a Pragmata with little knowledge of what’s actually happening on the lunar station. At the safe room, we can do all sorts of things such as managing our weapons, performing upgrades, print, and develop our abilities.
Die Waffen fühlen sich alle knackig und on point an. Dabei sollten sich Shooter-Erfahrene schnell zurechtfinden. Es finden sich dabei die klassische Pistole sowie eine Schrotflinte oder gar ein Raketenwerfer steht zur Verfügung. Im Hub lassen sich diese Schritt für Schritt verbessern. So machen sie mehr Schaden, haben ein größeres Magazin oder lassen uns die Feuerrate erhöhen. Interessant werden dabei auch die Nebenwaffen wie das Stasisfeld, das die Gegner lähmt oder ein Granatwerfer, welcher die Bots umwirft. Das Arsenal fühlt sich abwechslungsreich an und lässt sich in verschiedener Situation gut kombinieren.
All the weapons feel crisp and precise. Experienced shooter players should quickly find their way around. The arsenal includes the classic pistol, a shotgun, and even a rocket launcher. These can be upgraded step by step in the hub, increasing damage, magazine size, or rate of fire. The secondary weapons, such as the stasis field that paralyzes enemies or the grenade launcher that knocks down bots, are also interesting. The arsenal feels varied and can be effectively combined in different situations.
Additionally, you can increase the damage dealt by hacking, as well as its duration, during which enemies are left unshielded. Additionally, hacking nodes are unlocked, which can increase the damage multiplier, shock enemies, or restore the your health. Later in the game, further functions are unlocked in the safe room such as the bot cabin, which provides us with bingo cards to gather new skins, story titbits, and weapons. Furthermore, we get to use Red Earth Memory (REM), which prints objects in the safe room that Pragmata can interact with. The more Pragmata interacts with these objects and the more we talk to her, the more dialogue options become available. We also gain access to a suit storage area to view and select armor, or clothing, for both Pragmata and ourselves. The training simulator, which lets us complete challenging mini-tasks, rewards us with additional small goodies, such as more cabin tokens for bingo. Finally, a database provides us with information about various opponents.
All this additional content is fun to engage with, but you don’t need to do that in order to complete the game. However, you’ll miss out by skipping this. For example, you get to learn of what has occured on the moon base and you’ll witness more of Pragmata’s transformation into a girl. Her story basically resembles the classic Pinocchio story of a puppet becoming a human. As you progress, you can unlock new paths, and there’s a touch of Metroidvania in the mix, allowing you to explore new locations through some optional backtracking to collect cabin coins, REMs, and filaments for printing new objects.
While Pragmata’s visuals are generally pretty impressive, and it delivers a lot of stand-out moments, there are a few areas that are a bit monotonous, which – if you’re generous – can be explained away with all objects in the station have been 3D-printed.
Der Soundtrack nimmt einen mit, egal ob man sich durch Kämpfe beißt, Puzzles löst oder sich in einem Story-Twist befindet. Die Musik ist dabei immer gut passend, aber auch die im Spiel verwendeten Sounds sind sehr stimmig. Apropos stimmig kommen wir zur deutschen Synchro. Danke, Capcom. Mehr können wir echt nicht dazu sagen außer Danke, da diese wirklich sehr gut ist. Sie ist klar, sauber, ohne Peinlichkeiten in der Übersetzung und bringt Humor, aber auch Gefühle herüber.
Die Steuerung von Pragmata geht gut von der Hand. Wir haben den Titel am PC mit einem Controller durchgespielt, ihn aber auch mit Maus und Tastatur getestet. Die Handhabung der Menüs ist durchdacht und geht schnell von der Hand und auch das gleichzeitige Schießen und Hacken ist erste Sahne.
The game’s soundtrack is captivating – whether you’re engaging in combat, solving puzzles, or experiencing the next story twist, the music is always perfectly suited for every moment. The in-game sound effects are also very well done, just like the excellent German voice acting, for which Capcom deservers extra praise. It seemingly manages to convey the original meaning without any awkwardness in the translation with humour and emotion.
Pragmata’s controls are pretty intuitive. We’ve played through the game on PC with a controller, but we’ve also tested it with a mouse and keyboard. Navigating through the menus is snappy, just like the top-notch implementation of simultaneous hacking and shooting.
However, we do have a few minor criticisms: Firstly, some boss fights feel quite easy, and rely more on show effect than to provide us with an actual challenge we have to overcome. Secondly, generously placed invisible walls can quickly disrupt explorative players trying to get a nice view out of a window or to peek into a corner with crates. The enemies we face also lack in terms of variety. The game’s final boss fight, on the other hand, felt appropriately challenging.
As a single-player game with a play time of roughly ten hours, releasing a skin-only DLC for your safe room for a hefty price of €14.99 on day one seems rather odd.
Final Thoughts
Overall, we’ve had a lot of fun with Pragmata and hope that other developers, and especially publishers, will be bold enough to incorporate such fresh ideas into their games. On average, you should be able to complete the game in about eight to ten hours, but explorers who enjoy the hunt for easter eggs – like us -, may see the credits after around 17 hours. There’s also a New Game+ mode available.
Pragmata is a Game of the Year contender, though the game’s publisher has already put another quite promising contestant into the race, and secondly, the game mechanics may not appeal to everyone.
The game is available on Steam for €59.99 and in a Deluxe Edition for €69.99. For those unsure whether the gameplay is for them or if their PC can handle it, Capcom has kindly provided a demo.
Capcom has provided us with a PC copy of Pragmata which we’ve used to capture the screenshots.
