For many months now, some fans online have suggested that Capcom’s upcoming sci-fi adventure Pragmata is actually a secret Mega Man reboot. However, Pragmata’s producer says it is not, even laughing about the conspiracy theory when recently asked about it.
Fans and content creators online have spread this theory around for a while. Many point out that Pragmata’s cybergirl sidekick, Diana, shares a lot of design elements with Mega Man, with her coat lending her the robot’s signature color and her arm expanding during some moments in a way reminiscent of the Blue Bomber’s oversized blaster arm. There’s also the game’s narrative setup, which involves evil robots. But, in a recent interview with VGC, Pragmata’s producer Naoto Oyama completely denied this theory.
“Pragmata is not a Mega Man game,” said Oyama. VGC also reports he was laughing as he answered the question. He then added, “It is a completely new game from Capcom.
“I was actually one of the producers on the Mega Man Battle Network Legacy Collection as well, so I’m happy to see that people who love Mega Man are passionate about Pragmata too,” Oyama told the outlet. “From my standpoint, it’s nice to see people are being so positive about it.”
So that seems like a definitive no. However, I expect some fans will claim that Capcom is lying. That, of course, they won’t confirm Pragmata’s connection to Mega Man. It’s supposed to be a big secret, so Capcom will deny it until Pragmata launches sometime in 2026. (Remember when this game was revealed in 2020 and was supposed to be out in 2022?)
However, I’d argue that Capcom knows how much people want new Mega Man games, and if they were making one, they’d be shouting about it from the rooftops. Also, keep in mind that Capcom isn’t above referencing and hinting at other games in their new IPs. We saw this happen with Exoprimal, which many fans were convinced was a Dino Crisis game. And to fans’ credit, Capcom did include a woman with red hair in a debut trailer for the game about dinosaurs. So I’m not surprised there’s some Mega Man inspiration in Pragmata. Capcom really needs people to remember this game exists and care about it in 2026. And what better way to do that than by sprinkling a few references to something much more popular and hoping the fans take the bait.
Anyway, even if Pragmata isn’t a Mega Man game (and I really don’t think it is), the game sounds like it might be an interesting throwback to the kind of linear action games we got back in the 2010s on Xbox 360 and PS3. Here’s what our own Kenneth Shepard thought about it when he played it earlier this year:
Pragmata feels a bit like a game out of time, as its gruff old man protagonist, slow-moving enemies, and brutalist sci-fi aesthetic are all evocative of the over-the-shoulder shooters from the PS360 era. Given those seemingly bygone qualities, it’d be easy for Pragmata to feel rote and dated, but what I played was just inventive enough to feel novel. I was super impressed with it.