Pragmata: Likable, but Not Lovable
Jun. 12th, 2026 09:02 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
elfsI wanted to love Pragmata. Sadly, I only like it, but I will probably not love it. I’m about a third of the way through it and, while I’ll finish it, I feel confident in saying that this isn’t a game that will deserve a replay.
It’s not a spoiler to say give you the premise: Hugh is a member of a four-man team sent to a Lunar base to investigate a communications outage. The other members of Hugh’s team are killed in short order, and Hugh only survives due to a chance encounter with Diana: a robot in the body of a seven year old girl, and programmed with a persona to match. Together, you have to figure out why the base’s central computer is trying to kill you, shut it all down, and get the hell out of there. Typical video game stuff.
I’m just going to mention here that the online prudes concerned that your role here is as a grown man hanging out with a seven year old girl will give you salacious thought about seven year-olds are just being idiotic; that thought is entirely in their head. I read someone describing the game as “Dad Space,” and that was actually why I wanted to play it; I play video games where I get to hang out with cool characters, and Hugh and Diana seemed interesting.
They are, but only in a purely video game way.
Look, it’s a Capcom game. It’s not interested in a deep and interesting backstory. It wants to get on with the shooty-shooting, and if there’s anything more to the story than that it’s there to keep you from getting bored.
And that’s the problem: the writing, frankly, sucks.
Early in the story, Hugh asks Diana what she is. Diana says, “I am Pragmata D-I-313837, and I cannot be controlled by the central AI.” And that’s that. It’s delivered in a way that says “this is a fact. We won’t do anything interesting with her robot nature. She’s just your sidekick.”
Imagine how much more interesting the game would be if she said, “I am Pragmata D-I-313837, medical support robot for Doctor Somethingorother.”
“Why are shaped like a kid?”
“I dunno.”
“Can the central AI control you?”
“I don’t think so.”
See how easy it is to ratchet up the tension by introducing a little bit of mystery backstory and giving you to wonder if maybe the murderous AI is watching you through her? But no, it’s a Capcom game, it’s all about shooting robots.
The biggest problem, though, is that there are two Hughs in this story: the Hugh that wants to go home, and the Hugh of the Shelter. Actually, the Shelter is a huge problem in the story: it’s a respite, where Hugh can go pretty much all the time, get a full heal and a full refill of his kit, add on extra guns and ammo, and take a breather before heading out. And every time he heads out, he carries Diana on his back.
In the Shelter, Hugh is in Dad mode. He plays hide-and-seek with Diana. They dialog about his family, and his friends, and what it’s like on Earth. a She has the personality of a cheerful seven year old, full of questions, and their conversation has all the platitudes of a Sesame Street skit. Hugh sometimes finds childrens’ toys on his forays into the AI-controlled parts of the base and gives them to her, and she plays with the beachball and slides down the slide and draws with the crayons he knits out of the game’s Macguffin, “lunafilament.”
Walking through the power plant, or trudging through tunnels to the communications tower, Hugh is in Engineer mode. To this Hugh, Diana isn’t a little girl at all; she’s a useful tool who can sometimes trick combative robots into lowering their defenses, ping their surroundings for the next plot token, or unlock many of the doors. This Hugh would throw Diana into a furnace if that’s what it took for him to get home; to this Hugh, Diana is a machine that he can use to get the job done.
The Shelter says to not take the game seriously: no matter where you are, as long as you’re not actually in combat, you can find an easy portal back to the Shelter, where the AI can’t see or find you. The two Hughs seem so diametrically opposed to one another that it’s hard to take them seriously, either. The only consistency in the whole game is Diana’s persona which, frankly, is so plainly spelled out that she’s not that interesting either.
I’ll finish the game, because it’s pretty and I kinda like Shelter Hugh and Diana. I just wish it had been written by someone who cared about the characters more than they did shooting robots.
It’s not a spoiler to say give you the premise: Hugh is a member of a four-man team sent to a Lunar base to investigate a communications outage. The other members of Hugh’s team are killed in short order, and Hugh only survives due to a chance encounter with Diana: a robot in the body of a seven year old girl, and programmed with a persona to match. Together, you have to figure out why the base’s central computer is trying to kill you, shut it all down, and get the hell out of there. Typical video game stuff.
I’m just going to mention here that the online prudes concerned that your role here is as a grown man hanging out with a seven year old girl will give you salacious thought about seven year-olds are just being idiotic; that thought is entirely in their head. I read someone describing the game as “Dad Space,” and that was actually why I wanted to play it; I play video games where I get to hang out with cool characters, and Hugh and Diana seemed interesting.
They are, but only in a purely video game way.
Look, it’s a Capcom game. It’s not interested in a deep and interesting backstory. It wants to get on with the shooty-shooting, and if there’s anything more to the story than that it’s there to keep you from getting bored.
And that’s the problem: the writing, frankly, sucks.
Early in the story, Hugh asks Diana what she is. Diana says, “I am Pragmata D-I-313837, and I cannot be controlled by the central AI.” And that’s that. It’s delivered in a way that says “this is a fact. We won’t do anything interesting with her robot nature. She’s just your sidekick.”
Imagine how much more interesting the game would be if she said, “I am Pragmata D-I-313837, medical support robot for Doctor Somethingorother.”
“Why are shaped like a kid?”
“I dunno.”
“Can the central AI control you?”
“I don’t think so.”
See how easy it is to ratchet up the tension by introducing a little bit of mystery backstory and giving you to wonder if maybe the murderous AI is watching you through her? But no, it’s a Capcom game, it’s all about shooting robots.
The biggest problem, though, is that there are two Hughs in this story: the Hugh that wants to go home, and the Hugh of the Shelter. Actually, the Shelter is a huge problem in the story: it’s a respite, where Hugh can go pretty much all the time, get a full heal and a full refill of his kit, add on extra guns and ammo, and take a breather before heading out. And every time he heads out, he carries Diana on his back.
In the Shelter, Hugh is in Dad mode. He plays hide-and-seek with Diana. They dialog about his family, and his friends, and what it’s like on Earth. a She has the personality of a cheerful seven year old, full of questions, and their conversation has all the platitudes of a Sesame Street skit. Hugh sometimes finds childrens’ toys on his forays into the AI-controlled parts of the base and gives them to her, and she plays with the beachball and slides down the slide and draws with the crayons he knits out of the game’s Macguffin, “lunafilament.”
Walking through the power plant, or trudging through tunnels to the communications tower, Hugh is in Engineer mode. To this Hugh, Diana isn’t a little girl at all; she’s a useful tool who can sometimes trick combative robots into lowering their defenses, ping their surroundings for the next plot token, or unlock many of the doors. This Hugh would throw Diana into a furnace if that’s what it took for him to get home; to this Hugh, Diana is a machine that he can use to get the job done.
The Shelter says to not take the game seriously: no matter where you are, as long as you’re not actually in combat, you can find an easy portal back to the Shelter, where the AI can’t see or find you. The two Hughs seem so diametrically opposed to one another that it’s hard to take them seriously, either. The only consistency in the whole game is Diana’s persona which, frankly, is so plainly spelled out that she’s not that interesting either.
I’ll finish the game, because it’s pretty and I kinda like Shelter Hugh and Diana. I just wish it had been written by someone who cared about the characters more than they did shooting robots.
