Capcom's lineup at Summer Game Fest was a mix of bold and boring

The Verge

a day ago

Capcom had an interesting showing at Summer Game Fest with three titles that will carry the developer into 2026 and beyond: Onimusha: Way of the Sword, Resident Evil Requiem, and Pragmata. I got hands-on previews with both Requiem and Pragmata, and a hands-off presentation for Onimusha. Across the three games, I saw a mix of fresh ideas with Onimusha, some stale ones with Requiem, and some weird but interesting choices with Pragmata.
Of the three games, Pragmata represented the biggest tension between what I liked about it and what I didn't. In the game, you play as Hugh, an astronaut stranded on the moon who is aided by a small, child-like robot named Diana. To be frank, I'm utterly exhausted by the trope of a big, gruff dude protecting a small, innocent child. Enough! It's 2025, we have plenty of dad games at home, Capcom, there has to be a more interesting way to do this.
That said, I was impressed by Pragmata 's combat. What I thought was a straightforward shooter was still mostly that but with a complexity that dramatically changes the calculus of how you fight. Enemies in Pragmata are shielded and take little damage from Hugh's weapons. To fight effectively, you must use Diana's hacking skills, represented via a minigame that's basically a stripped-down version of the hacking minigame from Bioshock.
What's most interesting about this is that it all must be done mid-combat. Time doesn't stop as you're building a circuit to the end goal in order to stun your enemy. It meant I had to juggle hacking effectively with dodging enemy attacks in a way that felt fresh and exciting for what I thought would be a simple action shooter. I just wish they had applied that innovation to some of the game's narrative elements.
For Onimusha, Capcom revived a long-dormant series in a big way, first with a remaster of Onimusha 2: Samurai's Destiny and now with this new entry, the first in almost 20 years. During the hands-off presentation, all I could think was, 'This is Capcom's take on a soulslike.' Some of that is in the aesthetics. The world is dark, overrun by grotesque-looking demons who brutally cut down fleeing peasants before turning their swords on Musashi, the protagonist. In other ways, it's the combat. Enemies have stagger bars you deplete through deflecting and parrying attacks. In boss fights, as you slowly wear down your enemy, you can choose which part of the boss to damage to produce a certain effect. I did not get to play Onimusha myself, but I'm intrigued to see if any more soulslike elements are embedded within the game.
Finally, Requiem stole the Summer Game Fest show as Geoff Keighley closed the keynote event with a surprise reveal of the game and its February 2026 release date, after previously teasing that we wouldn't see it for a while. Later during Play Days, Summer Game Fest's in-person media event, I was treated to a short gameplay presentation and demo that offered a brief glimpse into the harrowing experience of Grace Ashcroft as she tries to escape an abandoned hospital.
During the gameplay presentation, Capcom emphasized that Grace would have to rely on her wits to survive rather than any kind of training as a soldier or law enforcement like the Leons, Adas, or the Chrises of that T-virus infected world. I liked that approach and how it was reflected in both the presentation and the demo. Since Grace had no weapons to protect herself, I had to find clues in the environment that would help me survive. That meant paying attention to my surroundings and reading everything I could find, landing on the one tip that got me through my time with the demo.
On the other hand, my brief look at Requiem felt like Capcom was tapping into old routines instead of doing something truly innovative for the ninth mainline entry in the Resident Evil series. Yes, the big monster lady was scary, and that delicious tension was heightened by the fact that I had no guns to shoot my way out in case my wits failed me. But there are only so many times I can be chased through hallways by a slowly plodding monster before it gets to be old hat. I've seen that not just in other Resident Evil games but in horror games in general, and I'm bored by it.