With Pragmata set to launch this April, a recent press event has provided the first deep dive into its “New York-like” cityscape originally shown during Sony’s February State of Play event. In a joint media interview (source: 4Gamer), director Cho Yonghee and producer Naoto Oyama explained that the stage was intentionally designed to feel “AI-generated.” And they achieved this by blending surreal distortions inside familiar locations to create a city that is recognizable yet distinctly unreal.
“For Pragmata, we set the premise as ‘a fake New York generated by AI,’” said Cho. “When familiar locations appear, players can relate more easily. On top of that, to make it clear that this isn’t the real New York, we wanted something slightly distorted.” The stage reflects this approach, according to the director, by featuring inverted streets and taxis that appear to be cut off midway.
“It mirrors reality, but its unique appeal comes from the setting errors and how they feel out of place, such as taxis sinking into floors, or buses sprouting from walls. Although the premise is that it generated by AI, actually, our human developers painstakingly worked to incorporate mechanisms that express this AI-like uncanny feel,” producer Oyama explained.
Cho added that crafting these distortions and “AI errors” required careful consideration and balancing in order to be visually interesting but without distracting the player. “Distortion is when something takes a shape that people have never seen before, and things unseen before are considered unique. But if the shapes are too unusual, players might think they’re related to puzzles or that the terrain has some hidden meaning. Balancing distortion to be both unique and merely background was difficult,” he said. Oyama also noted that, thanks to the balancing efforts, the team hasn’t received any feedback from players indicating that the paths were difficult to follow.
Pragmata will also feature other cities, though these will be “somewhere else on Earth” rather than fully urbanized stages, according to Cho. And New York itself will be a “mix of various cultures, like Madrid or Seoul” and not just a reproduction of New York.
Pragmata is scheduled to release on April 17, 2026, for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC (Steam), with a Nintendo Switch 2 version launching on April 24.
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