Cape work had a great exhibition at this year’s Summer Game Fest. Despite the most special demo of Resident Eule 9 Preium, the second preview of the publisher, Pragamata, was very open. This is an upcoming action shooter that impressed me with a unique mechanic of gun hacking.
My hands -on demo began with the lead character of the game, Hoo Williams, who, with the help of an Android partner, Diana, received consciousness at a space station, which looks like a long blonde haired young girl and for some reason, no shoes. We quickly attacked a robot that is slowly moving towards us, and our pistol is not harming. This is when the Pragamata introduces the hacking element in its battle, a unique mechanic that you fight. It was a lot to wake first, but it becomes very easy and fun.
Although you can make the goal with L2 and shoot with R2, like a normal shooter, you need to use Diana’s hacking ability to open weak points on every enemy. When you target an enemy, a grid appears, called the hacking matrix, on the right of the screen. From there, you should use facial buttons to move the icon through the grid to reach a particular point.
Facial buttons work like a Dad: The triangle goes up, the square moves, and so on. There are also unique points inside the grid that must be avoided or should go optionally for additional benefits. Reaching the end of the grid will open the enemy coach, which can cause you a lot of damage to your weapons. It is a unique combat mechanic that I had never seen in a shooter before and it was easy to wrap my head, making a very entertaining gunplay loop.
After fighting the first enemy, I managed to go into the adjoining hallway with more obstacles and enemies. Hue X can jump with X and even if the button is taken, the hover may be. It was useful to cross the large space or avoid harmful lasers. This happened when I was experiencing a door that I needed to find and walk to find five locks to open and move forward. Many new types of enemy appeared, including flying drones. The drones easily snatched my fire, but a sharp hack stared them in the place and made them victims of attacks. Walking tank -like enemies also appeared when I opened a new weapon: Shock View Gun.
Shockwave acts like a gun shotgun, which allows me to cause a lot of damage to one or more enemies. In addition, I also opened the final weapon for the demo, Stisss Gun. He similarly fired a hand grenade with a launcher, which contained a shot, but would put a bubble that would trap the enemies from the inside and surprise them. It is extremely useful when dealing with more than one opponent at a time, especially since every enemy needs cautious hacking – sometimes more than once.
When we approached the last room of the demo, we managed to take a hacking node. It is a limited use item that takes itself to a random place inside the hacking grid that appears when targeting the opponent. Transferring your cursor to these nodes and then reaching the final line in the hacking mechanic will be the cause of deployment. This node further reduces the enemy shield, which gives our shots a chance to be more damaged once weaken.
To make things more interesting, the game is mentioned that you can stack these nodes and pass more than one before finishing to get maximum benefits. However, keep in mind that you cannot move your cursor to a square that you have already passed, so do not hack yourself while living in the middle of a gun fight, which in turn may have to resume the hacking matrix.
In a wonderful decision, as the final boss of the demo appeared, our preview ended. For any reason, Cape Kam did not allow anyone to fight the Big Bedi. This is especially strange, since the majority of the demo and previews usually end after an interesting rise like the boss’s battle. It was also a real shame because I had a well practiced by rotating the hacking matrix and shooting opponents, and I wanted to test my new skills. If anything, he has made me even more excited to raise his hand on the Pragamata, and see what Cape Kam has offered for his unique battle.
Pragamata is coming to the Xbox series, PlayStation 5 and PC in 2026.
