Somerville Reviews
A disappointing follow-up to Limbo and Inside that lacks the same complexity of plot and puzzles, and yet struggles surprisingly poorly with the move to 3D.
Somerville takes inspiration from 2 great modern classics, Limbo and Inside, however, it falls short to offer a deep contemplative experience. Despite some technical difficulties, it offers great value as a visually compelling puzzle adventure.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Somerville is more of an interactive film than a narrative game. Unfortunately, the game's superb presentation fails to take away the impression that it could have been so much more. We would have liked for the devs to deepen the game mechanics, for the different members of the family to be used for gameplay purposes, for the player to have more opportunities to express his uniqueness, but above all for the rhythm of the game to be better balanced.
Review in French | Read full review
Somerville isn’t perfect and does struggle to get some things right with its physics, puzzles, and interaction, but this is still one of the best-paced games I’ve played this year, with a story to match. With stunning visual effects, Somerville just oozes atmosphere and stands among the most interesting, engaging sci-fi epics in recent memory.
Somerville is a fantastic debut for Jumpship that should be commended, but a little extra polish in some key areas would have made an already great game even better.
Somerville is an exceptional project with huge missed potential, reason being the overall weak technical state. The game is just raw and would greatly benefit from at least another six month of dev time.
Review in Russian | Read full review
Ultimately it's the setting, art direction, and non-verbal cinematic storytelling where Somerville excels. But even here there are long lulls and a few sections that begin to feel bland. Like when you’re in a cave system trying to avoid attention in a way that feels like a homage to Oddworld: Abe's Oddysee. And outside of the emotional notes touched upon when it comes to trying to reach your family in an oppressive situation, the ending and final act are too obtuse and abstract to make any sort of lasting impact. Somerville is a visually impressive, relatively short cinematic adventure held back by its ambition.
Appealing art direction and excellent sound design do a lot of the heavy lifting in Somerville, but are undermined at almost every turn by frustratingly sloppy gameplay mechanics.
Jumpship's debut mixes grand sci-fi and familial drama in a more cinematic take on PLAYDEAD's earlier titles to mixed effect.
Somerville has great potential, as not many games leave us wishing for more. It's an innovative puzzle game that falls a little short of its goal of providing a substantial and in-depth experience. But in no way can Somerville be called an imperfect game. It still manages to tug at the emotions and deliver its central themes brilliantly, and the genre will like many aspects of the game. It's an ambitious project, and I would love to see more from such a unique initiative.
In dark murky cues, colors pops will either mean danger or interactable objectives. There is no soundtrack thankfully as it would just divert the attention away from the environmental sounds of our man’s harsh breathing, the droning of enemy scouts, and the dire creaking of the trees and buildings around this desperate endeavour to just survive.
Somerville is a near-perfect adventure game themed around an alien apocalypse, with fantastic puzzles and exploration. Its few missteps do little to detract from the overall experience.
If you're wanting something that is easy and quick to play, and you're a big fan of sci-fi-oriented narratives, then Somerville's short two and a half hour runtime could work for you. However, frustrating puzzles, clunky controls, and an all-round unstable performance unfortunately left a sour taste in the mouth - even for such a short game.
Jumpship tries its best to evoke Playdead's aura with Somerville and even if thematically there are some great ideas with a good art direction but the jump from 2D to 3D doesn't feel as polished as you think. The story needed some more time in game to develop properly or another focus, kind of dimishes the impact of the endings rendering them a little unearned.
Review in Spanish | Read full review
Somerville is an excellent start for Jumpship. It might not be another classic like Limbo or Inside, but it was close to being one. A must-buy for fans of the genre.
Review in Arabic | Read full review
Somerville is a fantastically evocative game as it depicts an everyman's journey through a War of the Worlds-like alien invasion, leaning on countless sci-fi tropes and ideas along the way. Disappointingly, it's undercut on a number of levels by controls and a detached feeling and hastiness with some parts of the story it's telling.
So yeah… Somerville kind of sucks. The best parts of the game are when it focuses on the alien invasion aspect. The worst parts are everything else. Honestly, skip this game. It actually makes me worried for what Playdead has coming next because they have said they want to do more than just 2D games too and if they play anything like Somerville I’ll probably skip it.
Despite its issues, Somerville manages to offer a mostly enjoyable experience. The family bond forged in an opening scene, which is easily the highlight of Somerville, simply works and drove me through the game. I wanted to figure out what happened to my character’s family and see them together again, and that kept me going through a relatively short game. The strong atmosphere, which kept things visually interesting, and a soundtrack worthy of praise don’t hurt either. Unfortunately, with actual storytelling that doesn’t really work, busy areas which are hard to navigate, gameplay that doesn’t stand apart, and glitches that further weaken the experience, Somerville is hard to fully recommend. While fans of Playdead titles who can check it out on Game Pass or for a good price may find it worth the rather small-time commitment, other players should perhaps consider checking into the many similar games which simply execute this formula better.
A promising debut for Jumpship, with a perfect Game Pass title that can easily be finished in one evening but that would have deserved some extra polish. I want to believe.
Review in Italian | Read full review
Somerville is an intriguing, sometimes thought provoking venture that while initially mysterious ultimately ends up being a bit bland dragged down by a lack of polish and performance issues.