Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance, Vanquish, and Gears of War are just a few standout action games that defined gaming between the mid-2000s and early 2010s, even as the world was being dominated by the Xbox 360 in its best era.Capcom has dipped straight into that era to bring an action game that also builds upon the infectious dad energy from Death Stranding. It brings a sci-fi puzzle shooter, that leans in heavily into hacking to liven up the action by engaging your grey matter with guns.Hugh is your average engineer, sent to investigate the shutdown of a lunar research station, and possibly fix it. On their arrival, Hugh and his team discover the self-replicating facility is deserted. Disaster strikes in the form of a moonquake, leaving Hugh stranded with a mysterious little android girl, Diana, who possesses incredible hacking abilities to help him.This is fortunate as the AI on the station called IDUS have gone rogue and a bunch of hard-to-kill robots are out on the prowl, making this a ‘Hugh’ problem. While the story is quite threadbare, it is filled with some great world building. There is also a timely meta story about the world of AI we are facing now. It touches on the realities of AI-Slop and hallucinating LLMsof today and transposes them into a massive facility capable of 3D printing huge buildings with the help of a magic moon ore called Lunafilament.The results are quite apt, as much of Pragmata’s levels feel like carefully made AI-Slop — a 3D printed sci-fi nightmare, made by a corporation that deems re-printing is much cheaper than saving something.The gameplay loop is simple, but addictive. This is a hack and shoot, and when you aim, Diana who is perched on your shoulder, simultaneously pulls up a hacking panel that lets you do simple puzzles. With each successful hack, it exposes chinks in your enemies armour for you to shoot at.While it may feel like a one-trick pony, the game gets wonderfully complicated, without losing the essence. You can trigger elemental attacks, by going through equipped nodes, to break down targets effectively. Building upon Cyberpunk’s hacker builds, Pragmata makes this mechanic an essential to survival, and it is way more fun than it actually looks.There is also a dad-and-daughter story that buds over the campaign. Alone, Hugh is annoyingly gravelly and Diana hits an overkill of cuteness; however, they work well as a unit. While the story is simple, it does pull you in with its central mystery, which is why IDUS has chosen to turn this facility into its own circus.PragmataPublisher: CapcomDeveloper: CapcomPrice: ₹4,499 on Consoles, PC and Switch 2A cursory glance at the credits reveal Pragmata’s director to be Cho Yonghee, the visionary art director behind Nier Automata, and Revengeance, which explains a lot, especially the hard sci-fi stylings and level design that makes a statement in today’s world.This confirms that the AI-Slop levels were not generated, but made by humans to look like they were generated. One particular level had all manner of vehicles blending into each other, as jagged glitches tear into the hallucinated terrain. The RE engine, which powers all those fleshy horror gore bits in Resident Evil, does incredibly well with tech as well. Pragmata looks detailed, with the work that has gone into animating Diana. While it feels exaggerated in movement, there is a slight tilt towards how an android girl would imagine herself after being modelled on a human. It is clear a lot of attention to detail and craft has gone into the making of this game.Capcom is on a roll, with the blockbuster Resident Evil Requiem breaking charts. Pragmata is a competent action game that takes a puzzle-hacking mechanic and melds it into combat seamlessly, with some excellent world building and themes. Published - April 22, 2026 05:56 pm IST