Pragmata feels like an instance of parallel thinking with Helldivers 2. Last year’s hit multiplayer game was lauded for lots of reasons, but not least because of its strategems mechanic–demanding you input a complex series of button presses in the heat of combat. Pragmata, the third-person single-player shooter from Capcom, probably wasn’t directly inspired by that game, but they represent similar approaches. Central to Pragmata’s combat is the ability to hack your robotic opponents to make them vulnerable to attack, which in practice means frantically inputting buttons while androids bear down on you. It’s a neat hook, and one that feels distinct from Helldivers‘ take thanks to its own puzzle format.
Hacking requires navigating across a square grid–at least, every one I saw was square–with the controller’s face buttons representing the cardinal directions to move toward the goal. So if your starting point is in the top-left corner of a 3×3 grid, and the goal node is center-right, you could hit X, Circle, Circle to reach the goal and take down the enemy defenses, after which they’re vulnerable to attack. The puzzle interface pops up next to enemies automatically when you aim down sights, so you’re still moving and even able to shoot while solving the puzzle, requiring some tense mental juggling.
But the hacking puzzles are further complicated by special nodes–power-ups that stack if you pass through them, and blocks that you need to navigate around. The puzzles are also another way to differentiate the difficulty of enemies. Small buzzing flyers had the 3×3 grid, while larger humanoid walkers had 4×4 grids. I would imagine even larger enemies or bosses could expand the grid size even more.