10 Best Games Like Pragmata

Capcom’s all-new sci-fi action adventure takes you to space, where protagonist Hugh and android Diana rely on each other. Hugh is trapped in a cold lunar research station and needs Diana’s help to find a way back home. But first, he must help restore peace to Diana’s home, which has been taken over by a rogue AI. 

While Pragmata’s story is immediately attention-grabbing, its found-father-daughter relationship leaving you teary-eyed in places, it’s the gameplay that’s most impressive. Capcom has yet again defied expectations with its combat twist of hacking into enemy robots mid-battle. Particularly, Diana must solve a grid-like puzzle for the enemy shields to break, allowing Hugh to deliver the final blow. 

Before long, you’ll graduate to solving more complex puzzles and juggling extended punishing combos that are a delight to pull off. And by the credits roll, you might wonder what other best games like Pragmata deliver a similar caliber of player satisfaction?

10. A Plague Tale Series

A Plague Tale series may not be immediately linked to Pragmata. But analyze it more closely, and you’ll begin to see just how similar they are. The series has two main games now: Innocence and Requiem, with an upcoming Resonance: A Plague Tale Legacy one. 

Set in historical France, between 1348 and 1349, you follow young Amicia and her little brother Hugo’s darkest of journeys across a war-torn, supernatural-ravaged, gothic world. In Requiem, the rat plague is encroaching throughout 14-th century France, and amid it all, Amicia must help Hugo find a cure for his blood disease.

9. NieR: Automata

Lots of references to AI and its effects on human civilization can be found in Pragmata, in the story, and in the world design, too. A Times Square-like city is now distorted in mind-bending ways after AI goes rogue, and it creates an unsettling feeling of how much relying on AI can affect the future. 

If that line of storytelling speaks more to you, then NieR: Automata will surely satisfy. In a futuristic world, where humans are on the brink of extinction, they send androids to fight their war for them, androids who prove to be more than meets the eye.

8. Mass Effect

For a space-themed action-adventure, you can check out the Mass Effect series. Its trilogy will provide you with a sci-fi, futuristic setting that you become one with, following along Commander Shepard’s journey. 

It’s a more in-depth take on leading an elite recon crew, where the stakes are high, the relationships between crew members fracture just as much as they grow stronger, and the reward for making tough story decisions multiplies with every alternate ending.

7. BioShock

Yes, there are genetically-enhanced characters called Big Daddies in BioShock, and their main job is to protect the Little Sisters. A strong bond is shared between the two, and if you’re to claim ADAM resource from Little Sisters, or choose to rescue them, you first have to get through Big Daddies. 

Leave alone that, BioShock shares much more with Pragmata, particularly the desolate, dystopian setting. The underwater city of Rapture, or the city in the sky of Columbia, may not be in space, but their exploration sure feels like searching for the unknown in Pragmata, the mystery-solving, trying to understand what happened here.

6. Vanquish

The solar-powered space colony in Vanquish that humans go to seek refuge on is similar to Pragmata’s lunar base sci-fi station. Yet, it’s the fast-paced combat that qualifies it among the best games like Pragmata. You have to keep on the move, sliding to shoot waves of hi-tech robot enemies. Your jumps, dodges, kicks, and automatic aiming all chain together to create an electric synergy of constant motion and shooting action.

5. Dead Space

Horror fans will love Dead Space, set in an isolated space. Admittedly, beyond the sci-fi setting, there isn’t much else that ties Dead Space to Pragmata. Yet, the way that the lighting and sound design are used to portray horror on the moon deserves recognition. 

You do find yourself stranded on the moon and are trying to get back home. But not before you can get past humanoid horrors stalking your every move.

4. Control

Described as a “paranatural” cosmic threat to humanity, Control blows your mind with its ever-shifting brutalist architecture and physics-based telekinetic powers. It’s incredibly experimental, and yet thrills at every turn with its clever mix of ideas. It’s cinematic, but also atmospheric in its reactive environments: a strange world that will stick with you.

3. The Last of Us

Pragmata’s Hugh and Diana’s relationship immediately brings to mind The Last of Us, though props to the latter’s writing that’s way more emotive and digs deeper into Joel’s and Ellie’s character arcs. Fatherhood isn’t as simple as Pragmata portrays, even if the simplicity does feel heartwarming and fun. 

Joel’s and Ellie’s will take you deeper into the trenches of fatherhood. It’s complex, marred by trauma and loss, where Joel loses his own daughter, but comes to care for Ellie in ways he doesn’t expect to ever do.

2. Death Stranding

The sci-fi world in Death Stranding has stark similarities to Pragmata. Excellent lighting, with reflections that feel surreal. Plus, Sam Porter Bridges’ relationship with BB-28 is a lot like Hugh’s and Diana’s, where their bond grows stronger the more time they spend together. It’s deeply emotional seeing them develop a strong father-daughter bond, and help each other bear through the trauma and isolation of Death Stranding’s world.

1. God of War

It wouldn’t be a complete list of the best games like Pragmata without God of War. Here’s a biological father’s struggle to raise his son after losing his wife. When grief is mixed in with Kratos’ tendency for violence, but also a newfound care and vulnerability with Atreus. 

It takes you up and down emotional turmoils, with lots of relatable themes to fatherhood, as Kratos and Atreus grow apart in Ragnarok, and find each other again. If you want a more profound depiction of fatherhood, then give God of War a try.