Somerville arrives carrying a pedigree it cannot quite cash. It is the debut title from Jumpship, the independent studio co-founded by Dino Patti, who previously co-founded Playdead and served as executive producer on both Limbo and Inside. That lineage hangs over every frame of this science fiction adventure, which launched on Microsoft Windows, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S in November 2022 and reached PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 in August 2023. It received mixed reviews upon release. Our score lands at 6.8 of 10, matching the published critic aggregate across six outlets.
Trailer, via JUMPSHIP.
A Family, a Dog, and a Rural Home
Somerville follows a man, a woman, their young son, and their pet dog. One evening they return to their rural home after an outing. As they sleep in front of their TV, massive obelisk-like alien vessels descend from the skies. The story centers on the personal impact of the invasion as the protagonist searches for a way to reunite with his loved ones.
The game is presented without dialogue or narration. It uses setting, environments, and animations to tell the story instead. That choice is the whole gamble here. When it works, the silence does the heavy lifting. When it does not, you are left watching a man push a gate with no idea why it matters.
Blue Energy, Red Energy, Purple Energy
The alien vessels are composed of a strange material that reacts to different kinds of energy. Blue energy softens it. Red energy hardens it. Purple energy attracts and repulses it. This triad is the game’s mechanical spine.
Players control the father from a third-person perspective with platform game-like elements and physics-based puzzles. He can push open gates or pull carts. Over the course of the game he gains alien powers that, when he is also touching a light source, allow him to interact with the alien substance — instantly liquifying or solidifying it in the presence of that light.
| Energy color | Effect on alien substance | How the man gets it |
|---|---|---|
| Blue | Softens the material | Imbued by a dying soldier in alien-enhanced armor |
| Red | Hardens the material | Gained from a second soldier who wields red energy |
| Purple | Attracts and repulses the material | Not acquired by the player |
That table is the entire power set, and it is thin. Two of the three energies are yours. The third is scenery.
A Soldier Crashes Into the House
The back half of the setup is where Somerville gets its hooks in. The family attempts to flee, but retreats to the basement after their car is destroyed during the alien attack. A soldier wearing alien-enhanced armor crashes into their house. In his dying moments, the soldier reaches out to the man, who clasps his hand and is imbued with the power to manipulate the blue alien energy. The man is rendered unconscious.
It is daylight when he awakens. The battle ended some time ago, and the alien vessels still dominate the skies. His wife and son are gone. His dog remains. Using the blue energy, the man and dog make their way out of the ruins and venture into the desolate countryside.
This is the strongest stretch of Somerville. The house is wrecked, the sky is wrong, and the only companion left is a dog. No dialogue needed.
The Mine and the Red Soldier
Eventually the man is separated from his dog. He soon finds another ally: a second human soldier who wields red energy. The red soldier assists the man as they enter a mine. When a catwalk collapses, the soldier is fatally injured while protecting the man from the fall into the chasm below. Before he dies, the man gains the soldier’s red energy ability.
The man emerges from the mine and is swept down a river to a small town. He is found by other survivors taking shelter in the storage rooms beneath a grocery store, and is reunited with his family.
Two soldiers, two deaths, two powers. The structure is clean. It is also repetitive in a way the game never acknowledges. Each ally exists to hand over a color and then die. That is a mechanic wearing a character’s clothes.
Where Somerville Stands Against Limbo and Inside
The comparison to Limbo and Inside is unavoidable, and Jumpship invites it by hiring the man who produced both. Somerville shares their vocabulary: third-person perspective, platform elements, physics puzzles, no dialogue. But it does not share their discipline.
Here is the ranking of what Somerville does well, from strongest to weakest:
- Environmental storytelling through the ruined rural setting and the alien-dominated sky.
- The blue and red energy puzzle system, which is genuinely clever when the game lets it breathe.
- The wordless family separation, which lands hardest in the first hour.
- The pacing across the mine and river sections, which sags under repeated puzzle shapes.
- The reunion beneath the grocery store, which this paper found rushed and underweight.
That last item is our judgment, not a fact the game’s marketing would confirm. The man finds his family in storage rooms under a grocery store. It is a good image. In our reading it does not land as a payoff, because the game spent its middle hours on catwalks and chasms instead of on the people he was trying to reach.
The Case for 6.8
A 6.8 is not a dismissal. It is a score for a game that does several difficult things correctly and one important thing poorly. The difficult things: wordless storytelling that mostly reads, a physics system built on a three-color logic that players can learn without a tutorial, and a debut studio shipping a coherent vision on five platforms.
The poorly done thing: Somerville never decides whether it is about a family or about a substance. The blue, red, and purple energies are the most developed idea in the game. The wife and son are the least. When the man finally reaches them, the reunion is a location, not a scene.
Compare that to the two soldiers. Both get death scenes. Both get a transfer of power. The family gets a room.
What the Score Reflects
Mixed reviews upon release were the right call, and 6.8 across six outlets tracks with what is actually here. Somerville is worth playing for its first hour and its puzzle logic. It is not worth playing for its story, which is the thing it most wants to be judged on.
The pedigree set an expectation the game cannot meet. Patti’s work on Limbo and Inside as executive producer established a standard for wordless adventure games that Somerville approaches without reaching. That is not a crime. It is a debut.
But debuts get scored on what they are, not what they might become. Somerville is a beautiful, quiet, mechanically inventive game that forgets to make you care about the people it asks you to rescue. The dog is the best character. That says something.
For players who want atmosphere and puzzles, Somerville delivers enough. For players who want the emotional payload its structure promises, it comes up short. The alien substance reacts to three kinds of energy. The game itself only manages two.
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