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Capcom is on a hot streak. With some slipups, the company has managed multiple consecutive years of excellent releases across several series, leading to record sales. On the heels of the likes of Resident Evil Requiem and Monster Hunter Stories 3 in 2026, the creators of Pragmata, a new IP that famously took four extra years in the oven, could feel the pressure. Nobody wanted to break the streak, and especially not Yonghee Cho, who made his directorial debut with Pragmata.
I spoke to Cho, and producer Naoto Oyama, about the making of Pragmata. A big focus was on the pre-release period, the calm before the storm. The night of April 16, even with strong positive reviews in hand, Cho was up late, anxious.
“It’s my debut as a director in a game, so if this game didn’t do well, that wouldn’t be the best start for me as a director,” he says (via interpreter). “But going beyond myself, I was also nervous for Capcom as a company. Capcom gave me a chance to do a new IP, so from that stance as well, I really wanted the game to succeed.”
Cho says “I was so nervous I really couldn’t sleep” the night before launch, so when positive user reviews began to roll in on April 17, he was thrilled and, like Oyama, relieved.
“Thinking back, there’s so many points in time that are big steps,” Cho and Oyama recall in joint comments. “First, media previews of the game came out, and we’re happy to see how the media really liked the game. But in the back of our mind, we’re like, we can’t let our guard down. Because next is going to be reviews. Then reviews come out, and even if they’re good, it’s like, but the game’s not out yet. We still have to wait for what the players actually think about the game. When we finally see the player score, that’s the moment we actually feel, oh, we did it.”
Cho compares Capcom’s 2026 lineup to a baton race, with each new runner preparing to do their sprint and then pass the baton to the next teammate. “You don’t want to be the one to trip and fall when it’s your turn,” he says.
In some ways, on top of heightened expectations or pressure, joining a sterling 2026 lineup also gave Pragmata a bit of a comfier position. Capcom already had momentum and internal morale was high; Pragmata didn’t have to build things up, and it probably had more eyes on it than it would have in a weaker year.
“Because those were all positively received as well,” Oyama says of Capcom’s recent games, “[it’s] not necessarily higher expectations, but we feel like we can add to that success when there’s this instance where these games came out in a relatively short timeframe.”