Pragmata
Bullets barely scratch the robots patrolling this lunar research station until Diana, a young android, hacks their armor open. Hugh Williams supplies the movement and the firepower, and neither of them gets far alone.
The station is played sector by sector, with a quiet base in between where the two leads catch their breath.
Top 3 Reasons to Play
Shooting and puzzle-solving in the same seconds
Hacking is never a pause menu or a cutscene. The grid sits on the edge of the screen while the fight continues around it, and each hack becomes a small bet on whether the next volley can be dodged. GameSpot's review reached for Dead Space to describe the tension this creates.
A pair worth following across the moon
The story rests on two characters. Hugh is a systems engineer whose foster-care past surfaces in conversation, and it colors how he treats Diana. Diana talks a lot, and Giant Bomb credited her with staying useful rather than annoying because her chatter carries information. The Guardian singled out the father-and-daughter dynamic as the game's strongest suit.
A moon base that copies Earth badly
One level recreates a New York street that the artists built to look as though a generative AI had produced it: taxis sink into the ground and buses grow out of walls. Capcom says every glitch was placed by hand. World-building was supervised by Shōji Kawamori, who worked on the Macross series.
Story and Lore
In the near future, a company called Delphi Corporation transforms manufacturing with the lim replicator, a machine that prints almost anything from a blueprint. Its fuel is a lunar ore called lunafilament, mined at a Moon outpost known as the Cradle. Daily operations there belong to an AI, the Intelligent Direction Unification System (IDUS), and a large robotic workforce.
When communications between Earth and the Cradle drop out, Delphi systems engineer Hugh Williams and a support team are sent to find out why. They land in a facility with nobody in it. A moonquake then separates Hugh from his colleagues and knocks him unconscious, and the one who wakes him is a child-like android designated Pragmata D-I-0336-7. Hugh starts calling her Diana.
IDUS has turned on Hugh, and Diana has no idea why, or where the staff went. He still has to reach the Comm Tower and call home, and she is the only one who can get him through the machines in the way. Along the route the station supplies its own unease: unfinished replicas of Earth's cities and faint traces of the vanished staff. Then a voice from the Terra Dome asks for help.
Gameplay and Mechanics
Sectors are linear the first time through. Between them the game returns to the Shelter, a hub reached through Escape Hatches placed along the route. A hatch works as a checkpoint in the manner of a Dark Souls bonfire: using one sends Hugh back to base, resets the temporary weapons and hacking modules he picked up, and lets enemies repopulate the area. Dying costs no resources. There is no passive healing either, only Repair Canisters that refill once Hugh returns to the Shelter.
Combat starts with a look at an enemy and a held aim button, which opens the hacking grid. On a controller the face buttons steer the cursor; on PC, the player holds Alt and moves the mouse. The goal is the green target tile, and the tiles crossed on the way decide what the hack does. A successfully hacked robot enters an OPEN state that multiplies damage against it and can expose weak spots. After the first boss, Diana also gains Overdrive Protocol, a charged ultimate that opens enemies up, immobilises them and deals damage.
Tiles on the grid:
- Blue tiles strengthen the hack; some lengthen the OPEN window, others add damage.
- Yellow tiles are consumable hack modules equipped before a mission, such as Decode and Multihack.
- Purple tiles enable a Critical Shot for heavy damage.
- Red hazard tiles interrupt the hack if the cursor touches them, and static-covered tiles slow it down until the enemy is cleansed of dead filament.
Hugh carries four guns of four types. The primary unit is a pistol at first, later an assault rifle, with unlimited ammo that recharges when he stops firing. Attack units such as shotguns and railguns hit hard for a few shots, tactical units cover traps and grenade launchers, and defense units provide clones or shields. New guns arrive through the story, and pickups around fights restock or swap them. The starting loadout is set at the Tram Terminal, which also picks the departure point for each area.
Progression runs through three stations in the Shelter. The Unit Printer takes Lunafilament and rarer Pure Lunum for weapons, hacking nodes, abilities and attachments. The Firmware Updater converts Upgrade Components found around the map into permanent boosts for Hugh's suit, his primary gun and Diana's hacking. The Cabin Stamp Club is a bingo board paid for in Cabin Coins, which come from Safe Boxes and from Earth Memories gifted to Diana; each gift also gets replicated as a keepsake in the Shelter. Optional Red Zone arenas, hidden collectibles and training challenges pay out further materials.
Characters and Factions
The cast is small and most of it is machines.
- Hugh Williams: the Delphi engineer at the centre of the story, voiced in English by David Menkin, who was cast in 2024. He gets around with a hip-mounted jetpack that handles dodges and reaches distant ledges.
- Diana: officially Pragmata D-I-0336-7, voiced in English by Grace Saif. Capcom kept her appearance human and let the machine side show through in her voice and mannerisms instead. Her model was built from scratch, and Capcom staff performed her animations rather than child actors.
- Eight: another Pragmata, trapped in the Terra Dome, whose call for help redirects the route.
- Cabin: a small walking robot that runs the Shelter's Stamp Club and training challenges, and appears after the first boss.
Two organised forces shape the campaign. Delphi Corporation is the absent one, and its aims have to be pieced together from what it left behind. IDUS is the present one, and it fields the robot workforce as an army, with a boss closing each chapter: the Sector Guard comes first, the Luna Digger, a burrowing worm-like machine, waits in the mines.
Editions
Two editions exist. The Standard Edition contains the game and nothing else. The Deluxe Edition adds the Shelter Variety Pack, a set of cosmetic and audio extras that does not touch difficulty or progression.
The pack is also sold as separate DLC, which means anyone who already owns it gains nothing from buying the Deluxe Edition on top.
The Shelter Variety Pack contains:
- Outfits: Heavy Lifter and Lunar Cat for Hugh, Mecha Builder and Fluffy for Diana.
- Weapon skin: Grip Gun DS.
- Shelter music: Lo-fi, EDM and jazz versions of three tracks, titled Memories Are You, Dawn and Shelter.
- Diana gestures: Drowsy, Pumped Up and Stepping.
- Data Library: an artwork gallery.