Capcom’s upcoming sci-fi game PRAGMATA has been in development for a while, and one of the bigger creative challenges the developers faced was figuring out how to make Diana, one of the game’s two main characters actually feel like an android.

In a recent interview with Famitsu, PRAGMATA director Yonghee Cho sat down with indie anime director Kameyama Yohei to talk about the 3DCG art and visual direction behind their respective projects. During the conversation, Cho opened up about the difficulties the team ran into while developing Diana’s character.

Diana looks like a young girl, but she’s actually an android with the ability to hack into facility systems and machines, making her the puzzle-solving half of the game’s central duo. While her movements and voice occasionally dip into uncanny valley territory, her robotic side has mostly been kept subtle in what’s been shown so far. Cho revealed that this wasn’t entirely the original plan — he initially wanted Diana to come across as a more full-on android, but various restrictions pushed the team toward a quieter approach, conveying her robotic nature through small gestures and mannerisms instead.

“When creating a game, you are faced with various regulations, so there are certain barriers that somewhat restrict your expression,” Cho said. “We really wanted to pack Diana’s character with many different expressions that would only be possible precisely because she is an android and not a living, breathing human. But we ended up going through a lot of struggles, even when it comes to her visual design.”

One specific example Cho brought up was the kind of over-the-top, cartoonish expressions that anime has used for android characters in the past. He pointed to Arale-chan from Dr. Slump, a character known for literally detaching her own head  as the type of expressive freedom the team wanted to tap into but couldn’t easily pull off. “It’s really difficult to pull off more straightforward expressions like, for example, how Arale-chan from Dr. Slump literally carries her head off her body,” he noted.

Beyond creative restrictions, Cho also cited cultural considerations as a factor. Since PRAGMATA is being developed for a global audience, the team had to be mindful of how certain themes and visual ideas might land across different regions. “To be completely honest, successfully implementing edgy stuff into the game is actually quite tough,” he said.

PRAGMATA is set to launch on April 24, 2026 for PC (Steam), PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and Nintendo Switch 2. A demo is currently available on Steam for those who want an early look.