Somerville now has a release date. The side-scrolling adventure where you run from an alien invasion will make landfall on November 15. First announced at E3 2021 from Jumpship, the same studio that brought you Limbo and Inside, Somerville is a narrative-driven adventure game where the player tries to reunite a family separated in the wake of an alien invasion. Highly atmospheric and cinematic trailers provide prospective players with a sense of intense foreboding, while the aliens themselves have thus far only appeared as geometric shapes beaming lights at the ground in search of human survivors.Earlier this year, project director Chris Olsen revealed in an interview that Somerville will be different from its other titles in that it won’t have a “traditional gameplay loop.” Jumpship wanted to focus more heavily on the narrative and ensure the player never really knows what’s coming next, describing alien “hunting strategies” that the player will have to adapt to in order to escape from one safehouse to the next.
Olsen also revealed Somerville is largely inspired by Eric Chahi's Another World, a classic adventure game where the player finds themselves struggling to survive on an alien world. In Somerville, that alien world is Earth after an apocalyptically destructive invasion, but Olsen said that the game will have an entirely unique script that doesn’t borrow from other works.
Jumpship clearly wants Somerville to remain as much a mystery as possible for as long as possible, but there is one thing OIsen warned us about. The Sediment is one dangerous element of the alien invasion that has unique shifting properties. That’s a rare hint for Somerville, with the trailers providing precious few clues to warn the player about the aliens' capabilities.
Today's trailer provides even less information than Somerville's intro teaser, but it does provide one very important tidbit. Somerville arrives November 15 on Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S, PC, and Game Pass.