Last week, I was invited to the Nintendo of Europe offices to check out some upcoming Nintendo Switch 2 games, including Mario Tennis Fever, Resident Evil: Requiem, and more. Also on the list was Pragmata, a new game from Capcom that had failed to interest me when I first saw a trailer for it, and one that remained completely off my radar. I figured I'd play it out of politeness and that it'd be fine, but likely not for me. I could not have been more wrong.
After just under half an hour with this space-age action-adventure game, it's risen to the upper echelons of my most anticipated new Switch 2 games list, right alongside Fire Emblem: Fortune's Weave and Pokémon Pokopia. There are a lot of reasons why I'm so excited about Pragmata, but more than anything else, it's the combat gameplay. Simply put, Metroid Prime: Beyond might not be the best shooter on the Switch 2 for all that much longer.
First, though, a bit of context. Pragmata takes place on the moon, with astronaut Hugh and his android accomplice, Diana. The pair share the goal of returning to the earth, but to do this, they're first going to have to deal with some rebellious robots, and that's where you find yourself at the start of the narrative. It's not overwhelmingly original, with hints of everything from Alien to BioShock to Apollo 13, but it never feels explicitly derivative. It's also, as I've only recently found out, a game that's seemingly spent the last few years in development limbo, so the upcoming launch is the culmination of over half a decade of work.
Now, onto that gameplay I was getting so excited about earlier. Pragmata's combat gameplay revolves around several sci-fi-style guns, but that's not all. Each time you fire, you first have to solve a puzzle, enabling Diana's ability to disable the enemy robot's defense system. The puzzles require you to move a cursor across a grid to a target square, occasionally featuring obstacles in your path or additional power-ups to try and collect on your way to the goal. Reading those words back, it doesn't sound all that exciting, but there's a fluidity to this problem-solving exercise that grabbed my attention and still has it now, days later.
While it all happens pretty quickly, it's a very fulfilling feeling when you complete the puzzle and fire off a shot at a robot that's leering toward you. Speaking of things that feel great, Hugh also happens to have a jetpack, and for as long as I can remember, I've loved a playable character with a jetpack. There's a slight limitation in that, at least in the demo I played, you can't just rise up to the ceiling and attack from there - instead, it seems that the jetpack is there to help you traverse across gaps rather than ascend to new heights - but it still adds to the sense of flow the game creates in the movement and design.
My one slight concern is the difficulty, as the boss at the end of the demo mission proved much more challenging than the run-of-the-mill enemies in the build-up, and I wasn't the only one having trouble. I did manage to beat it the first time, but between having to collect ammo and the boss's bullet sponge health bar, it sapped away a bit of the momentum I felt while playing the rest of the level. Admittedly, this could be one of those instances where I just need to get good, but it's something I'll be keeping an eye on when I get my hands on the full game.
In terms of the visuals, Pragmata looks something like a cross between Death Stranding and one of my personal favorite GameCube hidden gems, P.N.03. Your surroundings are relatively sterile, but by no means bland, and there's a retro-futuristic vibe that follows you through each new section of the lunar research station that you explore. The same goes for the robots you spend most of your time gunning down, and better still, there's a gratifying explosion animation that plays every time you wipe one of them out.
Just as I found with my time playing Resident Evil: Requiem, Pragmata runs really well on the Nintendo Switch 2. If someone had covered up the console and handed me a generic controller, I'd have easily believed I was playing on a PS5, which, I assume, is exactly what Nintendo was hoping for when it launched its hybrid successor console last year. It's worth noting that I played in docked mode, though, so we'll have to wait and see how it handles while playing handheld.
Ultimately, Pragmata is shaping up to be one of those rare games that encourages me to step outside my comfort zone in a way I haven't since my late teens, and I'm 30 now, so it's been a little while. Whether or not I'll be as enthusiastic about the game as a whole remains to be seen, but from what I've seen so far, Capcom might just have a sleeper hit on its hands.
If I've managed to convince you, just as the game itself convinced me, that this is worth checking out, there's a demo you can download on Steam, though sadly not on the Switch 2 just yet. It's very replayable, so you can level up your shooting and puzzle-solving skills before the game's April 24 release date rolls around. While you wait, be sure to check out our Mario Tennis Fever preview or take a look at our list of the best Switch games.