Capcom‘s Pragmata Team Reflects on AI’s Unexpected Real-World Rise
The development team behind Capcom’s upcoming sci-fi action game Pragmata has revealed they didn’t anticipate artificial intelligence becoming such a dominant real-world phenomenon while creating their game about a hostile AI antagonist.
In an interview at Tokyo Game Show 2025, game director Cho Yonghee and producer Naoto Oyama discussed how their fictional narrative about an AI taking over a lunar space station unexpectedly mirrored real-world technological developments.
Unforeseen Technological Parallels
“We really couldn’t predict that AI would be this big from where we started to what you see now,” Yonghee told interviewers. “Now that AI has become this huge thing in the real world, we find ourselves thinking, ‘Oh, maybe we should have added this or that from what you see in AI right now.'”
Oyama emphasized that despite the real-world AI explosion, Pragmata’s core narrative remained unchanged from its early development stages. “We had the concept of the AI in the game locked down very early in development when we released the concept trailer years ago,” he explained. “We simply couldn’t predict that AI would become this significant in reality.”
When Fiction Meets Reality
The developers noted that real-world AI advancement has progressed so rapidly that it has potentially surpassed what they envisioned for their game. “Real life AI’s progression has been so fast that it’s perhaps overtaken what we have in the game right now,” Yonghee observed. “What you see in the game might not look as amazing compared to real life.”
This unexpected convergence between fiction and reality has led to some ironic reflections from the development team. “We created the game to be set in the near future,” Oyama remarked, “but the future has come closer than we anticipated.”
Looking Beyond Current Terminology
The rapid evolution of AI technology has even made the developers reconsider their terminology. “The word AI is getting a bit old right now,” Yonghee added. “By the time Pragmata takes place, people might not even be using the word AI anymore.”
In Pragmata, players assume the role of spacefarer Hugh Williams, who partners with an android named Diana to combat a hostile AI controlling a space station and make their way back to Earth.
The game is scheduled for release in 2026 on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC platforms. As reported in the original coverage of this story, the developers’ reflections highlight how quickly technology can outpace even the most forward-thinking creative visions.
