When I first saw the trailer for Pragmata — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-R3jo3zjFw — I was cautiously optimistic, but I refused to entertain interest in the game until I knew how it ended. Normally, I would not like spoilers, but I have a few “icks” I like to avoid when I engage with media — books, music, movies, games, etc.

Be advised that the video above does show the ending. It doesn’t give context, but it gave me enough to tell me to go ahead and get the game. If you don’t want spoilers, watch the trailer instead. It has a short version (called the “Core version”) of the song, which is not on YouTube on official channels. It’s in the trailer, and it’s on Apple Music (and presumably the other streaming services). So, maybe after the first 3-4 minutes, I’d just let the song play in the background, if you’re listening to the full, nearly 8-minute song. It’s a slow song (and, I know, that’s rich coming from a guy whose favourite singer is Enya), so maybe the “Core” version would be better. But I’m not providing traffic to channels that re-upload copyrighted content. (I have no problem with them doing that, I just won’t be a revenue stream for them.)

If you want to play the game, I highly suggest playing the demo first. The game does something most other games don’t: it lets you play two characters at once. Diana, the adorable robot girl, rides on the back of Hugh (the guy in the suit). She doesn’t “move” on her own, so your typical running and gunning are about the same as any other third-person shooter. Move with the left stick, aim your weapon with the right stick, aim with the left trigger, and fire with the right trigger. However, you’re exclusively fighting robots, and Diana hacks them, and this is done using the face buttons (ABXY on Xbox/Switch 2, and… well… the PlayStation glyphs on PS5). So on Xbox, Y is up, A is down, X is left, and B is right, but it’s whatever order your buttons are in. So while Skyrim on Switch flips everything around, I’m pretty sure Pragmata on Switch 2 doesn’t. You have a grid, which can be larger or have odd shapes, and you have to navigate through the grid, sometimes around traps, often through bonus nodes, to the target, to do hacking damage, which also opens the robot up to gun damage from Hugh. So not only are you moving Hugh (and Diana on his back) with the left stick, you’re navigating the hack as well. What the game doesn’t tell you is that if you don’t fail the hack (hit a trap, or Hugh gets hit before Diana reaches the target), you can just stop hacking, change position, target for the hack again, and lo and behold you’re right where you were, you don’t lose progress. This sounds confusing. It’s pretty easy with the slower robots, but I’m afraid some people won’t be able to juggle all those tasks at once… so you should play the demo to find out if you can do it. You’ll face a few enemies, and the first boss. The first boss is kinda difficult, but you just gotta keep moving and plan your attack. It’s more time-consuming than anything.