After a significant wait, Capcom's Pragmata has finally arrived, showcasing the latest capabilities of the in-house RE Engine. The title pushes technical boundaries on PC and home consoles, with high-fidelity ray-traced visuals, yet its simultaneous release on Switch 2 requires a different architectural approach. As we examine how this ambitious project scales to Nintendo's hybrid hardware, the question remains whether this is a masterly port or a compromised conversion.

While the game has been trimmed down considerably to function on mobile silicon, the essential visual essence of Pragmata remains intact. When compared directly to PS5's 60fps performance mode, several lighting downgrades are immediately apparent. Ambient occlusion is almost entirely absent on Switch 2, meaning models no longer subtly occlude surfaces, resulting in a flatter and duller image in areas that lack direct illumination.

Shadows and lighting effects have also seen predictable cutbacks to meet Switch 2's power constraints. Shadow maps are rendered at a lower resolution and come with a softer appearance, and many smaller objects, such as the furniture in the diner, cast no shadows at all. Global illumination quality is also pared back, leading to splotchy and dark indirect lighting that lacks the coherence found on PS5. These GI concessions closely resemble the PC version's lower settings, with RT disabled.

Reflections and asset quality follow a similar downward trend on the hybrid console. Screen-space reflections on Switch 2 appear rougher and lower-res than those on PS5, even though the Sony console does not use ray-traced reflections in its performance mode. Geometric features have also been simplified; curved assets, such as the astronaut's gloves, appear chunkier and less rounded, while textures are noticeably simplified and low-resolution. These compromises are most conspicuous during cutscenes and in larger, artistically dense environments.

Perhaps the most significant visual excision on the Switch 2 version is the removal of strand-based hair. This has been replaced by a more traditional card-based approximation, resulting in flatter locks that lack differentiated lighting. Given that Pragmata is a third-person game where deuteragonist Diana's long hair is almost always visible, the loss of natural hair movement and air resistance simulation is a palpable downgrade.

The Switch 2 version does at least fare surprisingly well in terms of image quality. While PS5 relies on a somewhat dated spatial upscaling approach from a 1080p or 1440p internal resolution, Switch 2 uses Nvidia's higher-quality CNN-based DLSS. This allows the Nintendo version to reconstruct a 1080p output from a 540p internal resolution that, in many instances, appears cleaner and more refined than the output of the PS5 (!), with impressive specular detail. While the overall image look looks softer, it's still a testament to how the hardware's modern feature set can salvage an image from a low base resolution.

Performance is unfortunately less impressive than the image reconstruction. Capcom has opted for an unlocked frame-rate, which in a game like Pragmata leads to a highly variable frame-rate. In dense exterior sequences, the frame-rate often fluctuates between the 30s and 40s, and only reaches the 50s or 60s in more sedate interior scenes. Without a stable update rate, the game can feel unpleasant to play, and we would have much preferred at least the option of a lock to 30 or 40fps.

A fairer hardware comparison for the current-gen Nintendo hybrid is the Xbox Series S, which shares many of the same visual compromises. Both consoles feature simplified GI, lower-quality shadow maps, and card-based hair. However, the Switch 2 actually holds several advantages over Microsoft's smaller console despite its performance disadvantage. The Series S suffers from noisy, dithered shadow penumbra, whereas the Switch 2 is cleaner, while texture details are often better preserved on the Switch 2 than on the Series S.

The image quality battle also favours Nintendo in this comparison. The Series S operates at an internal resolution of circa 720p but struggles to resolve clean edges, but the Switch 2 benefits from DLSS upscaling which produces a more cohesive image. However, the Series S maintains a solid 60fps output, highlighting Switch 2's lack of rendering grunt and its need for more stable frame delivery.

When moving to handheld mode, the internal resolution of the Switch 2 version drops to a paltry resolustion in the region of 360p. While DLSS helps the image hold up better than expected, the result is still muddy and prone to aliasing. Performance in handheld mode is also depressed relative to docked play, with frame-rates often lingering in the 30s. Furthermore, VRR does not appear to be functioning correctly, as the game rarely outputs a stable run of frames even within the console's supported VRR window.

Ultimately, our feelings on the Switch 2 version of Pragmata are mixed. It's an impressive technical feat to bring a current-generation RE Engine title to mobile hardware without losing its fundamental aesthetic, and the use of DLSS even allows the Switch 2 to deliver a higher-quality image than Series S.

Unfortunately, that isn't enough to make up for an unlocked and variable frame-rate that will be immediately off-putting to performance-sensitive players. That makes it harder to recommend, which is a shame for a port of this level of ambition.