Somerville
Top Critic Average
Critics Recommend
Somerville Trailers
Somerville Release Date Trailer
Somerville Teaser Trailer #4
SOMERVILLE Teaser Trailer #3
Critic Reviews for Somerville
An escape from alien invasion, with beautiful art direction.
Somerville never hits its stride, thanks to flat direction and frustrating mechanics.
Somerville has ties to modern legends Limbo and Inside, but it’s equally reminiscent of another Hall of Famer: Out of This World. The end result is a unique physics-based puzzle adventure that isn’t quite on the level of the games that inspired it, but is nevertheless an extraterrestrial nightmare worth exploring.
Somerville is one of the year’s biggest surprises, and I’m still shocked to see it fly under the radar. Its portrayal of an alien invasion raging across the British countryside hit close to home, while the story of a father searching for his family and being tied up in a dilemma so much bigger than he ever imagined is both nothing like I expected and everything I wanted. I can’t wait to see players far smarter than I piece its most devious puzzles together, since there are still so many questions waiting to be answered.
Jumpship's debut is a fantastic sci-fi tale with an intense atmosphere and wonderfully touching narrative, even if there are a few puzzle and movement frustrations.
Somerville is held back by technical shortcomings, but is full of impressive moments worth experiencing with the lights turned low and and your headphones up high. The father’s adventure lingers in my mind as I reflect on what happened, and those memories do ultimately outweigh the technical shortcomings. I hope time will provide improvements to bring the game to where it deserves to be, which is high in the sky alongside the ships of the invading forces.
Jumpship's wordless debut comes uniquely structured, but neither the story nor the gameplay do enough to help it carry the torch it's been passed.
In truth, I’m not the biggest thinker when it comes to media. I watch a film, read a book, play a game, and take what’s happened at face value. If meaning is hidden behind a 10k-post Reddit thread, then, well, maybe it wasn’t conveyed well enough. Somerville doesn’t have this problem. It’s affecting in all the right ways, and a game I really can’t recommend strongly enough.
