Pragmata - Early Game Tips You'll Want To Know

Pragmata's shooting and hacking hybrid gameplay is something truly unique in a sea of samey titles, but the game still manages to do a good job of being accessible and familiar to fans of the third-person action-adventure genre. It eases you into its creative mechanics slowly before unleashing its more challenging content, making it easy for most folks to adapt to.

That being said, there are a handful of things we'd like to recommend you do during the game's opening hours to help you make progress and feel confident in your ability to see things through to the end. Below are five quick tips to keep in mind while exploring Pragmata's lunar base.

Save your hacking nodes for the right enemies

To help you acclimate to the hacking gameplay mechanics during the early part of the game, you'll usually appropriate hacking nodes around the levels to hint that you should use them in upcoming battles. But you'll only have access to one hacking node slot in the beginning, so you'll need to be careful about when you use these.

When hacking in the opening hours, avoid using your Decode or Multihack nodes against weak enemies, saving them instead for larger, more challenging foes you encounter. Just hack around these yellow nodes on the grid until you reach a scenario in which they seem better fitted.

Luckily, after progressing further in the game and unlocking more hacking nodes and slots to keep them, this becomes slightly less of a problem--especially since you'll also be able to replenish them along the ground more frequently in combat arenas. Even so, it's a good idea to continue saving your most powerful nodes for specific types of harder enemies rather than wasting them on fodder.

Training simulations are a huge resource boon

While training simulations, which you'll unlock fairly early in the adventure, may initially seem like just a fun side activity, they're actually immensely useful for getting important materials, including Upgrade Components, Pure Lunum, and Cabin Coins. These resources can be used to dramatically improve your gear or help you unlock new mods.

You'll need to search thoroughly in each sector to find and unlock some additional training simulation missions, but it's well worth the effort to earn such incredible rewards. And don't forget to check Cabin's Stamp Club after completing some of these missions, as you'll definitely want to spend those Cabin Coins as soon as possible.

Upgrade your stats evenly until level 10

You get a lot of options for how to take on your mission in Pragmata, with plenty of mods, hacking nodes, and guns to choose from before heading out into a sector. But you can't respec the basic upgrades that you invest in at the Firmware Updater, which include your Suit (health and defense), Primary Unit (your permanent gun), and Hacking (hacking damage and performance).

Because of the limited Upgrade Components you'll find early in the game, we'd recommend leveling all three of the Firmware Updater stats pretty evenly during the first few hours. Getting all of these to at least 10 before specializing will help to ensure you're well-rounded enough for any engagement.

Of course, if you're exploring every sector extremely well and doing your training simulation missions as we told you to, you'll eventually be swimming in upgrade materials--meaning you shouldn't need to worry much about specializing in any one thing too much anyway.

Object Scan is essential

Finding upgrade materials and REMs is a major part of the gameplay experience in Pragmata. Without exploring and finding at least some of these collectibles, you may find yourself falling far behind in survivability and combat abilities. This is where Object Scan comes in, allowing you to use a surprisingly long-range scan to track the location of these materials across the level. This won't guide you directly to every collectible, but it will massively improve your ability to find them.

Object Scan unlocks early in the game, but you'll still need to buy it. It's cheap, though, and has no upgrades--so buy it the moment you see it come available. You won't regret being able to find things so much more easily.

Keep an eye out for holographic walls

Even with Object Scan available, it's possible you'll try to figure out how to reach an item but won't be able to find a clear path. In this case, there could be a feature you're overlooking altogether. Indeed, Pragmata features a decent number of holographic walls, which contain rooms or pathways to collectibles and upgrade materials. You've just got to know how to spot them.

Holographic walls in Pragmata always appear as smooth gray metal. When you're close to them, they'll give away a visual cue (see the image above) to alert you to their presence. Just approach the wall and press the button that appears on it to clear the hologram and allow you passage through to the goodies inside.

Listen out for Diana's chatter

While there is a lot of controversy over sidekick chattiness in games these days, we'd argue it's still worth keeping your ears open for what Diana has to say while you're exploring sectors in Pragmata. She'll often give you some worthwhile input on your surroundings or how to tackle a situation.

And no, if you're not a fan of hearing any helpful hints about what to do next, we regret to inform you that there is no way to toggle off these comments from Diana. But honestly, even if you don't necessarily want the assistance, she offers it up so adorably that it's hard to get mad at her for it.

Auto-hacking is a lifesaver

While doing your own hacking can all be part of the fun and tension of Pragmata's challenging combat encounters, there are times when it's best left to Diana so you can focus on dodging and shooting. That's why buying the Auto-hacking ability as early as possible is such a huge help. Luckily, it's also cheap, so as soon as this becomes available, go ahead and buy it.

Keep in mind, however, that using auto-hacking uses part of Diana's hacking gauge, so it's probably best to avoid overusing this option when you're trying to save up to use Overdrive Protocol. Also, don't forget to upgrade this ability as you proceed through the game, as you can eventually speed up Diana's auto-hacking to the point that it feels borderline instant. Awesome.

You can swap to Casual upon death

Pragmata starts off pretty manageable, but the difficulty ramps up significantly around the game's halfway point. If you're comfortable with quick reactions and working with multiple systems at once (shooting, hacking, dodging), then you may find that the Standard difficulty maintains a comfortable level of challenge. However, if you're struggling too much that you're becoming more frustrated than you'd like, you have an option.

When you die on Standard difficulty, the game over screen will offer you a chance to switch to Casual difficulty. There's no downside to this from a story or completion standpoint, meaning it won't affect anything in the game besides the base challenge. However, do be aware that you can't change back to Standard after switching to Casual, so be sure it's what you want before making the move down.

Alternatively, you can just start the game on Casual from the beginning if you'd really like the path of least resistance. The important part is that you pick the difficulty that ensures you have fun. That's what gaming is all about, after all.