Capcom Originally Considered Pragmata as Survivor Horror

Capcom is arguably the best in its field when it comes to survival horror. Dino Crisis and, of course, Resident Evil made the studio famous worldwide. It turns out the new IP it released this spring could have gone down that road too.

The game is Pragmata, a sci-fi action-adventure that, as Capcom confirmed, sold 2.5 million copies this summer. In a new interview with The Ringer, producer Masachika Kawata revealed Pragmata could have been made as a survival horror game, but the team decided against it. They felt comparisons to Resident Evil would be unavoidable, and that wouldn’t have helped a new IP. You can check out Kawata’s fuller comments below:

“A lot earlier, Capcom experimented with what type of game it could be. At one point, there was an idea to make something a little bit more horror focused. Stepping back a little, this was going to be a new series, a new IP, and so horror, which seems to have a lot in common with Resident Evil, didn’t seem like the most compelling use of the new title.”

It was most likely the right call. Capcom keeps building out Resident Evil, and since Requiem came out only a few months before Pragmata, another survival horror game would have wondered about the studio’s variety. As it is, Pragmata has been a big success for Capcom and will likely grow into a full franchise soon. According to Capcom Corporate Officer Yoshikazu Shimauchi, sales have beaten the company’s internal projections, and the chances of a sequel have gone up significantly.

Pragmata tells the story of an android girl named Diana and an astronaut named Hugh. Together, they have to escape a space station taken over by artificial intelligence and find a way back to Earth. The game is available on PC, Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and Nintendo Switch 2.