Pragmata’s Switch 2 preview shows impressive parity with PS5, Xbox Series X

Capcom’s upcoming Switch 2 versions are looking prettty, prettttty good

Pragmata, of course, has been around the block. It’s been stuck in development limbo since its 2020 reveal — delayed in 2021, delayed again in 2023, then finally popped up again in 2025 with a string of glowing previews and a 2026 release date. Polygon has previewed it twice since, both times lauding its innovative combat loop and praising its refreshing new IP (even if it’s not a secret Mega Man game after all). Pragmata, folks. Put it on your radar.

Polygon recently previewed Pragmata again at a Switch 2 preview event in New York City. The 15-minute demo gave us a refresher about Capcom’s inventive third-person shooter. It’s set in a base on the moon. That base has been overrun by antagonistic robots. You control two protagonists at once: spacesuit man Hugh (who can shoot guns) and horror movie girl Diana (who can hack machines). As Diana, you thumb your way through a grid-based puzzle game to weaken robots; then, as Hugh, you shoot them. It’s a combination that reads as cumbersome on paper but is riveting in action.

In substance, this Pragmata demo was the same one that Polygon had previously played. What struck me most during the session was simply how well the game played on Switch 2. Robots shatter in explosions of chrome when defeated. Diana’s hacking modules populate the screen in cascades of neon. All the while, Pragmata — a game with enough technical demands that it’s tough to picture it even booting up on the original Switch — chugs along smoothly. If Capcom made any compromises for Pragmata’s Switch 2 version, they are minimal. (The screenshots in this post are all from Pragmata's Switch 2 edition.)

Even in handheld mode, Pragmata impresses. Yes, the visual fidelity takes a hit (something the pros at Digital Foundry will no doubt scrutinize on a more technical level). Diana’s hair is muddier than it is on the big screen, and the space station environments lose some of the luxurious sheen present in the docked version. It’s also certainly tougher to aim Hugh’s weapons with Joy-Cons than with a Pro Controller. But crucially, Pragmata runs about as smoothly on the go as it does on the TV. I played through the demo twice, once while the Switch 2 was docked and once in handheld mode, and didn’t experience a single hitch. For an action game like Pragmata, where lining up shots and properly timing jumps is key, that’s arguably more important than maintaining a crisp image.

Pragmata isn’t the only upcoming Capcom game to look terrific on Switch 2. At the same preview event, Polygon also played the Switch 2 version of Resident Evil Requiem. Over the course of a brief demo, protagonist Grace Ashcroft wakes up inverted, strapped to a gurney, and must figure out how to escape. You can see the light glisten off puddles of blood, teasing fresh horrors around the corner. You can count the grains of wood on Grace’s Victorian-era trappings, and yearn for the time when architects cared about crown molding. Requiem’s Switch 2 edition is, like Pragmata, gorgeous. The same holds true for its handheld version, too. It runs shockingly well, the Switch 2 display retains the all-important darkness without distorting pitch black areas, and any visual concessions made are far less apparent than they are in Pragmata. (For a more extensive look at the game itself, read Polygon’s Resident Evil Requiem preview.)

The quality of these games on Switch 2 contributes to the ongoing narrative that Nintendo’s latest machine is more than capable of keeping up with the PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X — even with lower-end tech. Recent Switch 2 ports of Star Wars Outlaws and Assassin’s Creed Shadows don’t feel like major concessions compared to their console counterparts. Final Fantasy 7 Remake looks and runs like a dream (even if director Naoki Hamaguchi has openly acknowledged the challenges in developing such a port). Players have praised the Switch 2 ports of popular games like Split Fiction, Cyberpunk 2077, and Street Fighter 6.

And there are more still to come in 2026, including 007 First Light and a long-anticipated port of Elden Ring (not to mention The Duskbloods, a platform-exclusive from FromSoftware). The performance of recent third-party games on Switch 2 lends confidence to how future games might perform. And that’s a feather in Nintendo’s cap when considering the looming price increases of computer components, which some analysts suggest could push the next generation of consoles into prohibitively expensive territory or outright delay its expected timeline.

Pragmata itself is about a strange and distant imaginary future. But playing Pragmata on Switch 2 shows a future that seemed impossible just a few years ago yet feels within reach now: one where the console wars have faded into dreary obscurity, where the foamers have no solid arguments left to stand on, as the machines we use to play video games achieve functional parity. There is only one question in this future. How’s the game?