Andrew Webster | The Verge

Netflix can’t seem to follow up its biggest shows

2026-04-23T10:41:17-04:00

It hasn’t been that long since Stranger Things ended, but even still fans are clearly clamoring for more. The finale was overshadowed by a conspiracy about a secret episode, and an otherwise standard behind-the-scenes documentary became a hotbed for theorizing. Of course, given the scale of Stranger Things, Netflix was never going to let the franchise die completely, but its first attempt at expanding the franchise largely falls flat. Tales From ’85 is a stakes-free return to Hawkins that’s missing most of what made the original series such a phenomenon. And it’s another example of Netflix struggling to turn its biggest shows into ongoing franchises.

Tales From ‘85 is a spinoff that shows what the main cast of kids were up to in between seasons 2 and 3. It’s an animated series with a Saturday morning cartoon vibe, with bright colors and much less violence than the main show. The story has the crew dealing with yet another collection of monsters. Instead of the standard Demogorgons, Hawkins is being overrun with plant-like creatures that have become dangerous thanks to a combination of the influence of the Upside Down and a mysterious green goo.

Like the rest of Stranger Things, Tales From ’85 is saturated with nostalgia. Characters use She-Ra: Princess of Power to explain key plot points, there are scenes that feel ripped out of It, the goo is very Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and there’s even a Ghostbusters-style weapon toward the end. But it’s also nostalgic in a different way. While the later seasons of Stranger Things dealt with the young cast growing up, here they’re frozen in time, unburdened by their impending adulthood. It’s a throwback to simpler times in more ways than one.

The problem with the show is that there are zero stakes. With the exception of a new character — a tinkerer named Nikki who outfits the team with handmade weapons — it’s always clear that nothing too bad can happen to anyone, because we’ve already seen them survive in later seasons. Telling a story like this is a tricky proposition. It needs to be interesting, obviously, but not too interesting because otherwise viewers will wonder why these moments never came up in the main show. There are a few situations like that in Tales From ’85 — I have no idea why Nikki is never discussed in the later seasons given what close friends they all become — but mostly very little of any significance happens, because it can’t.

That’ll likely be disappointing for fans who are hungering for more Stranger Things, but it shouldn’t be too surprising given Netflix’s history. The streamer is good at making hits, but much less successful at expanding them into bigger franchises through spinoffs. Tales From ’85 is just the latest example. While an American version of Squid Game has been rumored for some time, Netflix has so far only followed it up with a reality series and a mobile game, both of which felt completely incongruous with the show’s nihilistic tone. The Witcher, meanwhile, started out as one of Netflix’s premiere shows, but its prequel Blood Origin was forgettable fantasy that somehow made Michelle Yeoh as a sword-wielding elf seem boring. (One outlier is Queen Charlotte, a well-received Bridgerton prequel.)

It’s not like every hit show needs to become an ongoing franchise, of course, and many of these titles — Squid Game in particular — would’ve probably been better off as one-offs. But Netflix wants franchises, and the problem with each of these spinoffs is that the streamer seems to have misunderstood what made the stories so popular in the first place. Tales From ’85 looks and sounds like Stranger Things, but it’s missing the stakes and the drama that made the original so beloved. Without that, it’s just another cartoon inspired by the ’80s.

The idea behind Netflix’s franchise ambitions makes sense from a business perspective. Making a hit show is hard, and trying to capitalize on that sounds a lot easier than starting from scratch. But as Netflix’s track record has shown, making a hit is hard no matter where you start from. Spinoffs and expansions run the risk of simply being watered-down versions of the original, and that’s largely what has happened to Netflix so far.

Despite all of this, Netflix isn’t stopping this strategy as it pushes forth into a new era of franchises following the end of both Stranger Things and Squid Game. A spinoff of Wednesday is in the works, and Netflix’s live-action adaptation of One Piece is getting not only a third season, but also an animated Lego special and a new anime series. Netflix execs have described this process as “building a universe.” The challenge is building one viewers actually want to visit.

Call of Duty never made much sense for Xbox Game Pass

2026-04-22T09:41:12-04:00

Call of Duty: Black Ops 7. | Image: Activision Blizzard

Yesterday Microsoft announced some surprising news: at a time when everything in gaming is getting more expensive, Xbox Game Pass Ultimate was actually getting a price cut. Going forward, the subscription service will drop from $29.99 to $22.99 per month, less than a year after getting a major hike. But there’s a caveat. Along with the cheaper price, Microsoft also announced that future Call of Duty games will no longer be available through Game Pass at launch.

It’s the end to a strange experiment from Microsoft, in which it attempted to boost its subscription service at the expense of selling Call of Duty games, which also happens to be one of the largest and most consistent businesses in video games. By making the change, Microsoft’s gaming division is attempting to solve two problems at once: Game Pass being too expensive and Call of Duty becoming less lucrative. And it could be the start of the company getting back to whatever an Xbox actually is.

The experiment first began in 2024 when Modern Warfare III launched on Game Pass, nearly a year after it first debuted. After that, Microsoft adopted a “day one” strategy, with subsequent releases Black Ops 6 and Black Ops 7 available on Game Pass at the same time they launched everywhere else. It was an attempt from Microsoft to use one of the most popular franchises in video games to bolster Game Pass, which had largely seemed to plateau at a little over 30 million users.

The concept dates back much further, though, as Microsoft has said that Game Pass is the main reason it spent $68.7 billion to acquire Call of Duty publisher Activision Blizzard in the first place. “With Activision Blizzard’s nearly 400 million monthly active players in 190 countries and three billion-dollar franchises, this acquisition will make Game Pass one of the most compelling and diverse lineups of gaming content in the industry,” the company said back in 2022.

But that never really happened. Even with Activision Blizzard titles, Game Pass doesn’t appear to have grown much, if at all; we don’t know for sure because Microsoft hasn’t reported subscriber numbers since 2024. But it certainly would if things were going well. Not only did Call of Duty not have a material impact on Microsoft’s subscription service, putting new CoD games on Game Pass also had the very obvious side effect of reducing sales for those games. Last year Bloomberg reported that the company lost $300 million in Call of Duty sales because of Game Pass.

In essence, Microsoft acquired one of the most consistent businesses in the video game industry — selling a new Call of Duty every year — and hindered it in hopes that Game Pass would hit a growth spurt. It disrupted something that worked with the expectation that it would lead to something bigger, and it was wrong. Given just how dysfunctional the games industry is right now, with even hugely successful games and studios struggling (something Microsoft certainly isn’t immune to), that now seems like a particularly bone-headed move.

The timing of the change is also important. Xbox is under new management after an executive shakeup, which saw longtime head Phil Spencer retire and be replaced by new Microsoft Gaming CEO Asha Sharma. In a leaked memo from last week, Sharma noted that “Game Pass has become too expensive for players.” In a post on X about the price cut, she added that ”We’ll keep learning and evolving Game Pass to better match what matters to players.”

On the surface, the change is a win-win for Microsoft. Game Pass was too expensive, Call of Duty games weren’t selling as well as they used to, and this will likely remedy both of those issues to some degree (though Game Pass Ultimate is still more expensive than it was before the 2025 price hike). It’s also important to note that CoD isn’t disappearing entirely from Game Pass. Existing games will remain on the service, while future titles will be added “during the following holiday season (about a year later),” according to Microsoft.

For Game Pass subscribers, the math is a little more complicated; the service getting cheaper is undoubtedly a good thing, but it also comes at the expense of one of its biggest selling points. It’s far too early to tell if a less expensive, CoD-light version of the service will ultimately lead to more subscribers.

Xbox is at a critical juncture, one where there’s plenty of confusion over what the brand is and what it stands for. Sharma has been vocal about what she describes as “a renewed commitment to Xbox.” What that actually means has been largely unclear. But the Call of Duty news and Game Pass price cut hints at what that might mean, and it looks a lot like correcting poor decisions from the past.

Apple TV has another busy summer of sci-fi with Silo season 3 in July

2026-04-21T09:48:44-04:00

Over the last few years Apple TV has established itself as a force in sci-fi, and that trend looks to continue through 2026. Up next: the post-apocalyptic thriller Silo is returning for its third season on July 3rd. The 10 episode-long season will span 10 episodes and wrap up on September 4th, with new episodes streaming on Fridays.

Based on a trilogy of books from author Hugh Howey, Silo follows the residents of an underground city — the titular silo — that live in a tightly-controlled environment amidst a grim and deadly landscape outside their walls. The first season introduced the story as a small-town mystery, before season 2 steadily increased the scope. Season 3 takes things to a new place: the past, before the events that led to everyone living underground.

Here’s the official synopsis from Apple, which was accompanied by an all-too-brief teaser trailer:

Season three of Silo continues the saga of a dystopian society of 10,000 people living underground under mysterious circumstances, while revealing an origin story set centuries earlier. In the present, Juliette Nichols (Ferguson) survives her forced “cleaning” but returns with memory loss as the silo recovers from rebellion and faces a dangerous new threat. Meanwhile, in the “Before Times,” journalist Helen Drew (Jessica Henwick) and Congressman Daniel Keene (Ashley Zukerman) uncover a conspiracy that pulls them into a chain of events with catastrophic, irreversible consequences.

While the first two seasons covered the first book in the series, the last two seasons (Silo has already been renewed for a fourth and final season) will cover the rest of the story. That means that the show is in something of a race to wrap things up.

Silo’s return comes at a time when Apple seems to be showing a renewed interest in science fiction, with plenty of releases in 2026. New seasons of Monarch: Legacy of Monsters and For All Mankind are currently streaming, while the spinoff Star City is set to premiere in May. Meanwhile, Silo will be joined this summer by two other returning sci-fi series: Sugar in June and Dark Matter in August.

Splatoon Raiders hits the Switch 2 in July

2026-04-21T09:49:30-04:00

The squid kids will be back this summer. Nintendo announced this morning that Splatoon Raiders, a single-player spinoff of its competitive shooter series, will launch on the Nintendo Switch 2 on July 23rd. It’ll be the first new entry in the series since Splatoon 3 in 2022.

In addition to the date, Nintendo also released a new trailer that gives a better idea of what Raiders will actually play like. Essentially, it looks like it retains the same ink-focused shooter gameplay — and killer soundtrack — from the main series, but translates it to a new campaign. That said, while Nintendo describes the game as “single-player-focused,“ Raiders does include some co-op elements, as you can team up with up to three other players, both online and locally.

Here’s the set-up, according to Nintendo:

Play as a mechanic working with Deep Cut, a trio of swashbuckling musicians, and venture out into the mysterious Spirhalite Islands! Customize your appearance, equip mechanical gadgets and ink-splattering weapons, and take on hordes of aggressive sea creatures called Salmonids in search of treasure.

The announcement of Raiders’ release date helps fill out what is currently a very light lineup for the Switch 2 for the rest of the year. Nintendo just released the life sim Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream (which is also available on the original Switch) and a big expansion for Super Mario Bros. Wonder, but the rest of 2026 currently consists of just Yoshi and the Mysterious Book (May), Rhythm Heaven Groove (July), Fire Emblem: Fortune’s Weave (release date TBD), and now Splatoon.

Which means we’re probably in for some big announcements after this summer to see what Nintendo has in store for the holidays.

The Elden Ring movie hits theaters in March 2028

2026-04-20T09:25:40-04:00

It’s going to be a little while before The Lands Between is realized in movie form. Bandai Namco just confirmed that the live-action Elden Ring movie, which was announced last year, is expected to hit theaters on March 3rd, 2028, with production kicking off this spring.

Based on FromSoftware’s open-world fantasy RPG from 2022, Elden Ring is being produced by A24, and Alex Garland — best-known as the writer of the 28 Days zombie franchise and directing the likes of Annihilation and Civil War — is both writing and directing the film.

While we don’t know much else about the movie just yet, today’s announcement also introduced the main cast. That includes: Kit Connor, Ben Whishaw, Cailee Spaeny, Tom Burke, Havana Rose Liu, Sonoya Mizuno, Jonathan Pryce, Ruby Cruz, Nick Offerman, John Hodgkinson, Jefferson Hall, Emma Laird, and Peter Serafinowicz. There’s no word on what roles everyone is taking on, which raises one important question: who will voice the turtle pope?

Of course, Elden Ring isn’t the only big fantasy RPG being adapted for film. Nintendo is also following up the success of its animated Super Mario movies with a live-action take on The Legend of Zelda, which is slated to premiere on May 7th, 2027.

The perfect successor to Lost has been hiding from me for years

2026-04-15T09:54:51-04:00

Ever since Jack decided to stay behind in 2010, I’ve been searching for something to give me the same feeling that Lost did. I crave a big mystery with a huge cast and more secrets than I can handle, something that prompts me and my friends to share nonsensical theories about what’s really going on. It’s been 16 years and my search has been filled with disappointment. Yellowjackets initially seemed like exactly what I wanted until its downslide began, while promising shows like 1899 were cancelled before they had a chance to really get started. It turns out that the perfect Lost successor has actually been airing for years, but because of the fractured nature of streaming, I almost missed it entirely.

From’s fourth season premieres on April 19th, and the parallels with Lost are unmistakable. It takes place in a small town somewhere in the US where people occasionally arrive but can never actually leave. To make things worse, monsters disguised as humans prowl at night, torturing and killing anyone who remains outdoors after dark or is silly enough to invite them into their homes. The town’s residents have to work together to stay safe and build something resembling a normal life, all the while seeking out answers about what the hell they’re doing there, and how they can get home. It’s like the Lost island except much more horrifying. (There is a lot of blood in the show.)

As with Lost, the secrets pile up at an incredible rate. If someone were to overhear you and a friend discussing From, it would sound like gibberish. There are magical talismans, evil ballerinas, electricity that comes from nowhere, and copious unexplained dream sequences. The cast is huge (and it grows at a few different points) and the show doesn’t skimp on shocking deaths. Also like Lost, there are key elements that make you rethink all of your assumptions about the show; a voice on a radio, for example, or a disappearing dungeon. From even begins with a Lost-esque “previously on” opening voiced by Lost alum Harold Perrineau.

So how did I miss this show? One that seems to have been designed in a lab to give me the exact dose of Lost I’ve been seeking? It’s simple: there are too many streaming services. From airs on MGM Plus, formerly known as Epix, which is under the Amazon umbrella but is inexplicably still a separate platform from Prime Video. It’s a service I’ve been vaguely aware of but hadn’t had much of a reason to check out, so aside from some mild curiosity about an adaptation of Stephen King’s The Institute, I never bothered to. Other exclusives like Robin Hood and Beacon 23 similarly failed to capture my attention. From’s forgettable title didn’t help much either.

The streaming landscape is dominated by a few big names, but there are plenty of others like MGM fighting for scraps. It’s a challenging space. Netflix got off to a head start and hasn’t looked back, while Disney has been able to leverage its enviable lineup of properties to lure in subscribers. Amazon and Apple are throwing a lot of money at the problem, but are still far behind the competition. In a world like that, something like MGM Plus was always destined to be a niche. Which means that it is now incredibly easy to miss shows altogether. Hell, it’s my job to follow the TV industry and it still happens to me. Things become even more difficult when you factor in just how busy the major platforms are, with Netflix expanding into everything from live TV to sports on top of its traditional programming. If I can’t keep up with what I already have, it’s a tough sell to also jump into yet another streaming service.

I don’t know what the solution is. It’s not like having one monolithic streamer with everything on it would be good, particularly in an industry that’s constantly struggling with the effects of consolidation. But I do know that the current state of streaming is difficult to navigate for everyone. There are too many options and they just keep getting more expensive. I currently have subscriptions to four different streaming services and I still pay for cable. It makes it easy for a show like From to slip through the cracks.

At least there’s one benefit to learning about a show late: binge-watching. From lends itself well to this, with its cliffhangers and revelations, along with seasons that come in at very manageable packs of 10 episodes. So if you have a similar Lost-shaped hole in your life, now is the exact right time to jump into From. It’ll just require one more subscription.

The new Tomodachi Life is made to be shared — even if Nintendo doesn’t want you to

2026-04-15T10:20:05-04:00

Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream is hard to explain. The best way to understand is to see it in action; a screenshot of Handsome Squidward and Bob Belcher falling in love over their shared appreciation of cannibalism makes it clear that, while it’s a life sim, the game is really a joke-generating machine. Living the Dream on the Nintendo Switch gives you more tools and fewer restrictions to make those jokes stranger and funnier. But while Living the Dream provides more freedom for creativity, it also has big restrictions on sharing those creations, and the game seems content with inside jokes staying within its virtual walls.

Living the Dream is the sequel to a 3DS game that, a decade ago, I called “the weirdest thing Nintendo has ever made.” It’s sort of like The Sims or Animal Crossing, and it’s also a little like a Tamagotchi. You play as an omniscient overseer of a small island that’s populated with Miis, Nintendo’s delightfully lo-fi avatar characters, and you have to feed them and make them happy by fostering relationships and playing games. As you do that, the island will expand with more residents and more things to interact with, so that eventually you’ll have a Ferris wheel, a restaurant, and a TV news station.

What makes the sequel interesting is that it really opens up what you’re able to do. The creation tools in particular are much more robust. There are lots of options for designing Miis such that, even though I am decidedly not artistically inclined, I was able to make very recognizable cartoon characters without too much effort. Notably, unlike its predecessor, Living the Dream has options for things like same-sex relationships and nonbinary characters, making it much more inclusive and open. The island itself similarly has a lot of customization options, though these slowly unlock over time.

The real meat of the experience is setting up situations and watching how things unfold. You can make characters become friends or romantic partners by literally picking them up and putting them next to each other. The game will even frequently ask you for topics that they might want to talk about, Mad Libs style. It’s an acquired taste, but for the right kind of person it can also be hilarious.

Perhaps the most remarkable thing about Living the Dream is that, at least as far as I can tell, there are no restrictions for what you can name characters or what you can make them say. To really test this, I let my 13-year-old kid run wild, tasking her with creating the most messed-up island her teenage brain could think of. Now my Switch is home to the cast of The Owl House, who love to chat to each other about Hitler, summoning Satan, and human trafficking. Nothing that she threw at the game was off-limits. (Also, I’m a little worried about her.)

That’s all very surprising for a Nintendo game, particularly given the company’s squeaky-clean image and family-friendly fare. And it’s almost certainly the reason why Nintendo has made it so that you can’t share screenshots and videos using the Switch’s built-in sharing features. Without getting into specifics, Nintendo wrote on a support page that the Living the Dream’s freedom can “sometimes lead to humorous, surprising, or unpredictable moments during gameplay,” but also said that “we recognize that out-of-context scenes may be misunderstood or may not reflect the spirit in which the game is intended to be enjoyed.”

Given the problems Nintendo has run into with online sharing in the past, it’s an understandable position to take. It’s also not impossible to share things; you can get around the limitation with a capture card or by simply taking photos of the Switch’s screen. Players already started doing that when Living the Dream’s demo came out.

Since much of the fun of Tomodachi Life is pushing the game to its limits to see what you can make your little Miis do, maybe Nintendo understood that there probably wasn’t any kind of filter it could put in the game that inventive players wouldn’t be able to bypass. Perhaps a full-scale sharing ban was the only option. But that decision also runs counter to the spirit of Living the Dream. Whenever I land on a really good joke, I immediately take a screenshot because I want to show it to people. My kid and I have been comparing stupid images all week trying to one-up each other.

Nintendo’s restrictions aren’t going to stop the really dedicated players. TikTok will almost certainly be flooded with even more phone camera videos of cute little Miis talking about sex and violence. Because those kinds of players are exactly who this game is for.

_{Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream launches on the Nintendo Switch on April 16th.}

Godzilla Minus Zero stomps through New York in first teaser trailer

2026-04-14T19:05:09-04:00

*insert Godzilla screeching sound* Here’s the very first look at the next big kaiju feature. Godzilla Minus Zero will continue the story of 2023’s Godzilla Minus One, which returned the franchise to the more grounded tone established in the original film, and while the new teaser trailer doesn’t show a whole lot, it suggests some big things for the series.

Minus Zero is set in 1949, two years after the first movie, “and continues the story of the Shikishima family as they face an all-new calamity,” according to the official logline. Apparently that includes shifting the setting from Tokyo to New York, as we see Godzilla right next to the Statue of Liberty. Stars Ryunosuke Kamiki and Minami Hamabe will be reprising their roles, while director Takashi Yamazaki — who is also making a giant robot movie called Grandgear — will once again be helming the film. Toho also says that Minus Zero will be the first Japanese movie filmed for IMAX.

It’s a busy time for the world’s most famous kaiju, who will also be appearing in the next entry in Legendary’s monsterverse with Godzilla x Kong: Supernova, and is currently featured in the Apple TV series Monarch: Legacy of Monsters. Godzilla Minus Zero, meanwhile, hits theaters on November 6th.

Bloodborne is being turned into an R-rated animated film

2026-04-14T13:38:16-04:00

It’s not a PC port or a remake, but Sony is returning to the Gothic world of Bloodborne. There aren’t many details yet — Sony says that “plot details are still being kept under wraps” — but the game is being adapted into “an R-rated animated feature,” with YouTuber Seán “Jacksepticeye” McLoughlin (a known Bloodborne fan) serving as a producer. No word on when the film might be premiering.

First released in 2015 on the PS4, Bloodborne is developed by FromSoftware, the same team behind the dark fantasy Souls series. Like those games, Bloodborne is known for its brutal difficulty, but it’s also beloved for the fully realized city of Yharnam that serves as its setting. In the game, the city is overrun with a virus that turns its residents into violent creatures.

Sony has had, let’s say, mixed results when it comes to adapting its biggest PlayStation properties for film and television. While HBO’s take on The Last of Us has been a hit, other projects like Uncharted and Twisted Metal haven’t been as successful. Up next is a live-action take on God of War coming to Prime Video.

Bloodborne also isn’t the only From title being developed for film. A24 is working on an adaptation of the open-world fantasy of Elden Ring, which will be directed by Alex Garland.

Pragmata is just okay, but it could’ve been great

2026-04-13T13:28:29-04:00

Over the last few years, Capcom has done an exceptional job of solidifying its lineup of big, long-running franchises. The likes of Monster Hunter, Resident Evil, and Street Fighter have all been on strong and consistent runs, an impressive thing given the current strain of uncertainty that runs through the games industry. And now the developer is using that momentum to launch an ambitious new property called Pragmata.

The game takes the bones of Resident Evil’s slow-paced action and merges it with a sci-fi world that explores everything from lunar colonization to artificial intelligence. It has some genuinely great ideas, including an incredibly unique combat system and disorienting levels that are like three-dimensional AI slop, but they’re buried under a familiar structure and a story that relies heavily on sci-fi tropes. Pragmata could become something special over time, but this first game plays things too safe to really stand out.

As is often the case with stories like this, Pragmata begins with a small team investigating a disturbance at a lunar outpost. When they arrive, the place is eerily quiet and empty, and soon enough one of the investigators — a man named Hugh — finds himself separated from the rest of the team. Eventually he meets up with what appears to be a young girl, but is in actuality an experimental android named Diana. The two pair up to figure out what’s going on and find a way back to Earth. Getting in their way is a rogue AI that now controls the colony and seems to have a distaste for humans, turning every bot into a murderous machine.

Despite the obvious Resident Evil DNA, Pragmata isn’t straight-up horror, though it does get spooky. Instead, it’s more of a fairly traditional third-person action game. Hugh gets all kinds of futuristic weapons that mostly represent the traditional video game arsenal, including a shotgun and a missile launcher. But the game also gives you plenty of ways to customize how you approach combat. You’re constantly getting materials that let you upgrade Hugh’s suit and weapons, which lets you focus on your own particular playstyle. I really liked throwing a holographic decoy that would distract enemies, letting me sneak around with close-range weapons to blow them away.

The main twist is how Hugh and Diana work together. The little android is always riding on his back, and when battles start you’re essentially playing as both of them simultaneously. Diana can hack into enemies, weakening them while Hugh shoots. At first, it feels strange; hacking is like a minigame where you have to move a cursor through a grid to reach an enemy’s weak point. But the action doesn’t stop while you’re doing that, so you have to pay attention to avoiding attacks and shooting at the exact same time. It’s a real “pat your head while rubbing your stomach” type of situation, except here you’re completing a strange maze while fighting murderous robots.

The combat is easily the best part of Pragmata. Not only is it completely unlike anything I’ve ever played, but every aspect is well tuned: The weapons feel great, the enemies are varied and often terrifying, and the customization options are plentiful. I also appreciate that Pragmata has very generous checkpoints; there are multiple spots in each area where you can head back to your shelter, a very Death Stranding-inspired space that lets you catch your breath, chat with Diana, and upgrade your gear.

But aside from that there isn’t much interesting going on. Mostly you’re just exploring the colony to turn on power stations and unlock doors (which lead to more power stations) in order to make your way back to Earth. The story doesn’t help much. There’s a lot about Pragmata’s setup that could speak to our current moment, given that it’s set on the Moon and features a deadly AI villain. It even explores the impact of a new element that makes it possible to 3D print basically anything. At least initially, it seems like Pragmata is using these concepts to go to some interesting places. One of the early areas you explore is a 3D-printed version of New York, but designed by an AI in ways that don’t actually make much sense. There are yellow cabs melted into the ground and shop windows that appear upside-down and inaccessible. It’s like AI slop made physical, a hallucination that you can explore.

But that scene is an outlier. Outside of a few key moments, the story relies entirely on well-worn sci-fi tropes, which means it’s constantly reminding you of other, more original tales. The company that runs the colony, for instance, is basically Alien’s Weyland-Yutani, a group that uses the lawless nature of space to run morally dubious experiments. The relationship between Hugh and Diana echoes just about every story about an artificial being that wants to be human, from Pinocchio to The Terminator. Hell, there’s even an enemy that’s basically a robotic Dune sandworm.

Worse still is that most of the actually interesting narrative bits — like the sheer callousness of the tech corporation, or the way so many employees shift their responsibilities to AI — only appear if you choose to read the many optional notes lying around or listen to talking holograms. If you want to get anything out of Pragmata’s story, you have to dig for it.

This is especially frustrating because there’s a core of a really unique game in Pragmata. It’s well crafted and has a handful of fresh ideas. But at the same time, it feels too derivative. This isn’t an uncommon thing in games; there are plenty of brand-new franchises that struggle to form an identity at first before cutting loose in a sequel, like the progression from Watch Dogs to Watch Dogs 2. Hopefully something similar happens with Pragmata. Capcom has shown a real knack for developing its franchises, and Pragmata feels achingly close to joining that list.

_{Pragmata launches on the Switch 2, PS5, Xbox, and PC on April 17th.}