Pragmata represents one of Capcom’s more experimental projects in recent years, blending sci-fi action with puzzle-driven mechanics and a distinct visual identity. Built on the studio’s in-house RE Engine, the game has evolved alongside advances in rendering technology, allowing the team to push areas like ray tracing, path tracing, and character fidelity—particularly in features like Diana’s strand-based hair system. So far, it's off to a very strong start for a brand-new IP.

In this interview, Pragmata's Director, Yonghee Cho, and Producer, Edvin Edsö, as well as other members of the development team at Capcom, break down how Pragmata has taken shape over time. Ranging from its evolving technical ambitions to its hybrid gameplay design and production pipeline, we were offered an unprecedented deep dive into how Capcom continues to iterate on its engine and tools when building a new IP.

Pragmata has had a long and evolving development cycle. How has the vision for the project changed over time, both creatively and technically?

Yonghee Cho, Director: From a creative standpoint, the core vision hasn’t changed significantly, but on the technical side, we were able to steadily raise the level of quality each year—particularly with ray tracing, path tracing, and Diana’s hair. From the beginning, we aimed for crisp visuals in white environmental spaces with metallic surfaces, as well as realistic movement in Diana’s hair. However, there were aspects that simply weren’t feasible at the time. As technology has evolved and made these things possible, we’ve finally been able to achieve the current visual quality.

The game has a very distinct sci-fi tone, blending grounded realism with more surreal, futuristic elements. How did you approach defining the art direction and visual identity early on?

Yonghee Cho: Since my background is as an art director, I use a somewhat uncommon approach to direction—shaping the game’s world and gameplay vision while actively creating art. For PRAGMATA, the sci‑fi style aims to depict a near future that isn’t too far removed from our present—a technological future that feels relatable and easy for players today to connect with and immerse themselves in, even though it is still science fiction. But it doesn’t go as far as being hard sci‑fi. Visually, one of the key points of my direction for this project was finding the right balance: blending a “familiar-looking atmosphere” with the “sense of wonder and surprise of sci‑fi you’ve never seen before.”

Can you tell me about the decision to blend typical shooter gameplay with a more puzzle-like mechanic seen in Diana's hacking abilities?

Yonghee Cho: In the beginning of development, we knew we wanted to make something more than a typical shooter set on the moon, so we had to find a way to add a strategic element to the action. Something that could work well in real-time as you were handling the movement and shooting. This is how we ended up with Diana and her hacking as the two-in-one gameplay system.

Narratively, it seems like the genre of having a gruff and serious middle-aged man with a younger child-like figure, often a girl, to protect is quite popular these days. Why do you think that is? What does that companionship theme bring to the table?

Yonghee Cho: When we began development, we envisioned the game as a sci‑fi action title set on the Moon. Rather than creating a straightforward shooter, we wanted to explore a new type of shooting action by adding strategic elements to the combat. As we explored different approaches, the core idea emerged: hacking enemies to efficiently defeat them by shooting. That concept became the foundation of the game’s design—and Diana was born naturally out of that process.

Capcom’s RE Engine has powered a wide range of titles across different genres. What made it the right fit for Pragmata, and how has it evolved to support this project specifically? I remember reading something about how it renders hair needing to be updated for Diana.

Edvin Edsö, Producer: One of the great strengths of the RE ENGINE is its adaptability. For each title at Capcom, we can adapt the engine to the project’s needs and also update the engine as needed for the title. As you mentioned, for PRAGMATA we implemented a technique called "strand" to allow long, lifelike hair for Diana, and now that it’s been implemented into RE ENGINE, other titles can now utilize it going forward, such as what you can see with Grace Ashcroft in Resident Evil Requiem.

Can you walk us through your typical workflow for building environments in Pragmata, from concept art through to final in-engine implementation? How do you approach lighting and materials to achieve that balance between realism and stylization? 

Yonghee Cho: Both in terms of gameplay and visuals, we basically start by asking, “What is it that we want to do?” and first define what we want to achieve. When it comes to environments, we begin with questions like, “Where do we want to go?” and “What do we want to see?” and then consider, “Will this surprise the player?” Next, we think about “What would you want to do if you were in that space?” and use that as the basis for our level design. By continuously posing these kinds of questions and making sure we can clearly answer them, we then move into a flow where we gradually make things more concrete. That’s how we approach creating our environments.

I saw the quote about the New York area needing to look AI-generated. Are there other scenes like that in the game that you can allude to? How has the ongoing discourse around AI influenced the game's development and marketing?

Edvin Edsö: Each stage in PRAGMATA is built so there’s something that keeps you on your toes. Not all the levels are like the cold lunar station you see at the beginning of the game, and not all of them are like the New York-esque stage. There’s also an area where nature becomes more prevalent, and we have other surprises in store for players. As for the current conversation on AI, we began development on PRAGMATA and established an AI as the villain long before the current discussion around AI arose. So, while it’s been interesting to see this develop, it’s not something that has influenced the creative side or the development side of the game.

What tools and software sit at the core of your pipeline for modeling, texturing, and asset creation alongside RE Engine?

PRAGMATA Dev Team: The core software packages that we utilize in our asset production pipelines predominantly are Zbrush, Maya, Houdini, and Substance Painter/Designer.  

Zbrush is used extensively in our character and creature pipelines for scan cleanup and sculpting high-resolution assets that form the basis for the eventual game ready assets. Once the sculpting or scan cleanup is done at high resolution, we step down the model resolution to our game ready topologies and send it over to Maya for final game asset production.

Maya is the backbone of much of our modeling, rigging and animation pipelines, and we have customized the Maya environment for our artists with custom tools to streamline aspects of the pipeline for them. Some quick examples include tools for quick asset validation and export to RE ENGINE, including tools that provide artists with the ability to assign metadata to the models in Maya, so when imported into RE ENGINE they are automatically assigned the correct materials and textures. We also have a custom in-house asset revision control system that is connected with Maya that allows artists to upload new revisions of their assets without leaving the Maya interface, allowing them to stay in the creative mindset for longer.

We leverage the power of Houdini for creating procedural non-destructive workflows and FX simulations quite often for large scale or complex destruction sequences. As with Maya, we have built some in-house tooling to assist with getting the data between other applications and Houdini.  We have integrated Houdini Engine functionality with RE ENGINE to enable some of our procedural workflows directly in our engine editor which allows us to iterate rapidly.

Texturing workflows revolve around a combination of photogrammetry and Substance Painter or Designer for texture painting or generation as needed by the asset being created.

RE Engine is known for its efficiency and performance. What are some of the biggest technical challenges you’ve encountered on Pragmata, and how has the engine helped address them?

PRAGMATA Dev Team: One of the major technical challenges we faced was balancing visual quality with performance.

For example, Diana’s long hair is one of her defining features, and hair rendering was an area we were especially particular about. However, rich visual expression and performance often exist in a trade‑off relationship, making it difficult to strike the right balance. To address this as much as possible, we implemented the strand-based technology mentioned earlier, which allowed us to achieve hair movement that feels full of life. Additionally, the quality of the strands can be adjusted, enabling us to finetune performance to meet requirements across a wide range of hardware specifications.

Can you share any insights into your approach to physics, simulation, or interaction systems within the game’s world?

PRAGMATA Dev Team: The Moon is the setting of the game and one of its defining features, but during development, there were some areas where the feeling of being on the Moon wasn't very prevalent. To address this, we adjusted the gravity values used in the simulation in certain scenes. By applying these changes to character controls and to elements like hair movement, we incorporated visual and gameplay cues that constantly remind players they are on the Moon.

Looking back at development, what have been the most important lessons learned when working with RE Engine on a new IP like Pragmata?

PRAGMATA Dev Team: We learned an important lesson that, especially when working on a new IP, it is essential to iterate quickly through the development cycle—repeatedly and at a fast pace—and that this is a key factor for success.

Before PRAGMATA reached its final form, there was an enormous amount of trial and error, and there were many situations where modifications on the RE ENGINE side were necessary. By fully leveraging the strengths of having an in‑house engine and being able to receive necessary features quickly, we were able to run these cycles of experimentation many times within a short period. As a result, we were able to bring the project together into a final form that the entire team could truly be satisfied with.

PRAGMATA Development Team at Capcom

Interview conducted by David Jagneaux

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