The Pragmata Sketchbook Demo Is a Short but Tantalizing Preview

One of the few genuinely surprising announcements from the 2025 Game Awards came not during the main ceremony, but eight minutes into the pre-show. Tucked between awards like Best Esports Game and ads for quirky games like Tankrats and Escape from Duckov, a trailer rolled from a tiny little company called Capcom. Turns out, they had big news to share.

Pragmata, Capcom’s long-awaited new sci-fi IP, will finally release on April 24, 2026. Even better, the Nintendo Switch 2 has been added to the game’s stable of launch platforms.

In a new story teaser, Capcom gives players a taste of what they can expect come April. The trailer features a Kojima-esque opening, flashy action sequences, and plenty of melodrama, all tied together with an emotional background track. Give it a look for yourself:

It’s an exciting trailer — especially for those who have been waiting for Pragmata since it was announced in June 2020(!!!). Nearly six years later, the wait is almost over.

There’s icing on the cake, too. At the tail end of the trailer, Capcom revealed that a gameplay demo, titled Pragmata Sketchbook, is currently live on Steam and “coming later” to PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and Switch 2. For those on PC, the wait ends today.

While I don’t typically game on PC, I couldn’t pass up an early opportunity to try Pragmata. So, I booted up the good old Steam Deck, tweaked a few graphical settings, and got to playing.

My instant reaction? So far, so good.

Impressions of the Pragmata Sketchbook Demo

Before I go any further, let me preface by saying the Pragmata demo isn’t particularly long. I played for about 25 minutes, split across two playthroughs — one 15-minute run to get a handle of the controls, then a 10-minute speedrun that included a new weapon, item, and vanity cosmetic to experiment with. For the most part, however, these two runs were identical.

The Story (aka the Robot Uprising)

You play as an unlikely tag-team duo: Hugh, a technician turned astronaut, and Diana, his supernatural android sidekick. Together, you must navigate a (seemingly) abandoned space station while fending off various sentient robots that have laid claim to the facility.

While details about Pragmata’s story remain scarce, the gist I’ve gathered from promotional materials is that humanity’s AI companions have gone rogue, and now Hugh and Diana must put an end to the madness. A bit on the nose given our current economic climate.

I didn’t glean much in my playtime, but then again, maybe Capcom will have something worthwhile to say. (I doubt it.)

The Combat (aka Snake in Space)

But story was never the selling point of Pragmata. What got folks invested was its novel approach to combat — a simultaneous mashup of third-person shooting (via Hugh) and third-person hacking (via Diana). While navigating the space station, I got to take Capcom’s multi-layered concoction for a test drive. And oh, did it cruise.

Aiming and shooting is just like you’d expect (think Dead Space for the closest comp), but the hacking is where things get interesting. Every time you aim at an enemy, a grid-based panel pops up that you must solve to deal damage (otherwise, your bullets are virtually ineffective). By tapping the four buttons on a controller, you can navigate the grid, stacking up various damage modifiers before “solving” the puzzle and opening up your enemy to a barrage of bullets.

It sounds complicated, but after a few minutes, the duality of Pragmata becomes seamless. Add in various weapons (one stuns enemies, another deals heavy damage, etc.) and some satisfying navigational tools like a thruster dodge and air hover, and Pragmata layers on just enough complexity to feel crunchy.

The Big Boss (aka Other Snake in Space)

At first, I worried that Pragmata was too easy. The hacking was straightforward, and even without stacking up max multipliers in combat, I was breezing through enemies.

That changed at the end of the demo, with the appearance of a hulking mech straight out of a Metal Gear game. Here, the puzzles got tougher, the enemy hit faster, and I had to reply on timely dodges and jumps to evade oncoming attacks. After a lengthy battle that grinded Hugh’s health to near-zero, I eked out a victory with a well-timed (and wonderfully old-school) finisher move.

I don’t want to oversell the experience (in my second run, I cleared the boss with little resistance). I’m also wary of whether Capcom can carry a 12-15 hour experience around a single mechanic alone. But as a proof-of-concept for what Hugh and Diana’s adventure could look like, once the scenarios and enemy types have a chance to stack up, the demo passed the litmus test with aplomb.

Five and a half years ago, Pragmata had my attention. Today, four months until launch, it still does.

Final Thoughts (For Now…)

As much as Pragmata’s mysterious trailers have impressed over the past several years, nothing compares to getting your hands on a game for the first time. Based on my (admittedly limited) demo time, I’m cautiously optimistic that Capcom’s latest adventure will deliver where it matters most.

Pragmata, developed and published by Capcom, releases on April 24, 2026, for PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and Nintendo Switch 2. MSRP: $69.99. Version previewed: PC (via Steam Deck).