Year: 2022
Developer: Jumpship
Atmosphere: Sci-Fi · Apocalyptic · Lonely
Visual Style: 2.5D · Cinematic Realism
Focus / Pace: Puzzle Exploration · Slow-Paced
Platforms: Xbox One · Xbox Series X/S · Windows
Overview
Somerville is a cinematic sci-fi adventure centered around environmental storytelling, atmospheric exploration, and large-scale alien spectacle. Following a mysterious extraterrestrial invasion, players guide an ordinary man separated from his family through devastated landscapes filled with abandoned homes, strange structures, and collapsing civilizations. Like many modern cinematic platformers, the game relies heavily on silence, visual progression, and carefully staged sequences rather than direct exposition or lengthy dialogue.
Created by developers with ties to Inside and Limbo, Somerville shares the same focus on cinematic pacing and immersive world-building, but expands the formula into larger, more open environments. Instead of constant tension or horror, the game emphasizes awe, confusion, and human vulnerability during an incomprehensible global event.
Why Somerville stands out
While many cinematic platformers focus on tightly controlled side-scrolling sequences and oppressive enclosed environments, Somerville expands the genre through larger spaces, cinematic scale, and a more grounded emotional perspective. Rather than following a lone abstract protagonist, the game centers on an ordinary family caught in the middle of a mysterious alien invasion, giving the experience a more human and intimate tone.
Its visual storytelling also feels unusually ambitious for the genre. Massive alien structures dominate landscapes, distant events unfold dynamically in the background, and environmental destruction constantly reshapes the journey forward. Combined with its restrained dialogue and slow pacing, Somerville creates a strong sense of confusion and vulnerability rarely captured so effectively in cinematic platformers.
The Story
After a mysterious extraterrestrial invasion devastates Earth, a man becomes separated from his family while trying to survive the collapse of civilization. Traveling through abandoned towns, ruined homes, and surreal alien environments, he gradually uncovers strange phenomena linked to the invading force.
Like classic cinematic platformers, Somerville tells much of its narrative through visual storytelling and environmental progression rather than explicit exposition. The game focuses less on explaining the invasion itself and more on portraying the emotional disorientation of ordinary people caught inside an incomprehensible global catastrophe.
Graphics
Somerville uses a realistic 2.5D visual style that emphasizes cinematic framing, environmental scale, and natural lighting. Rural landscapes, abandoned suburbs, flooded roads, and massive alien structures create a world that feels grounded and believable despite its science-fiction setting. The game frequently uses distant background events and large environmental vistas to reinforce the scale of the invasion, giving many scenes the feeling of an interactive science-fiction film rather than a traditional indie platformer.
Its muted color palette and subtle visual effects also contribute heavily to the game’s melancholic tone. Rather than relying on stylized abstraction like Limbo or Inside, Somerville aims for a more naturalistic presentation centered around realism and atmosphere.
Gameplay
Gameplay focuses primarily on exploration, environmental puzzles, and cinematic traversal. Players move through collapsing environments, manipulate strange alien matter, and solve light physics-based interactions to progress through the world. Combat is almost entirely absent, with the game instead emphasizing vulnerability, movement, and environmental observation.
Compared to more puzzle-heavy cinematic platformers, Somerville often prioritizes pacing and visual storytelling over mechanical complexity. Many sequences are designed less as traditional gameplay challenges and more as interactive cinematic moments intended to immerse players in the scale and confusion of the alien invasion.
Atmosphere
Somerville’s atmosphere is defined by isolation, uncertainty, and quiet devastation. Much of the journey unfolds through abandoned homes, silent roads, and ruined landscapes where traces of ordinary life remain frozen in time after the invasion. The absence of heavy exposition gives the world a dreamlike and unsettling quality, constantly leaving players uncertain about what exactly happened or where events are leading.
Unlike horror-focused cinematic platformers, Somerville rarely feels deliberately terrifying. Instead, it creates tension through scale and ambiguity. Giant alien structures loom silently in the distance, strange transformations affect the environment, and massive events unfold with very little explanation. Combined with its restrained soundtrack and slow pacing, the game captures a strong feeling of human fragility during an incomprehensible catastrophe.
🎮 My honest opinion
Somerville impressed me most through its cinematic scale and environmental storytelling. Some moments genuinely feel massive in a way rarely seen in cinematic platformers, especially when enormous alien structures appear in the distance or entire landscapes begin transforming around the player. The atmosphere constantly pulled me forward, even during slower gameplay sections.
That said, the game occasionally struggles with readability and puzzle clarity, and some interactions can feel less polished than the work seen in Inside or Limbo. Still, Somerville succeeds at creating a memorable science-fiction journey built around mood, mystery, and visual immersion rather than traditional action or challenge.
My favorite moment (no spoiler): Reaching the massive alien structures in the distance for the first time. The scale of the environment suddenly became overwhelming in a way very few cinematic platformers manage to achieve.
Somerville is best for: players who enjoy slow-paced atmospheric science-fiction adventures and cinematic environmental storytelling.
Where can I play Somerville?
Somerville can be played on PC as well as Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S. The game is available digitally through stores like GOG and Fanatical on PC. Thanks to its cinematic presentation and slower-paced exploration, Somerville works particularly well as a relaxed single-session experience with headphones and a larger screen, allowing its environmental storytelling and visual scale to fully stand out.
Games similar to Somerville
Players who enjoyed Somerville will probably appreciate other cinematic platformers that combine science-fiction themes, quiet exploration, and strong environmental storytelling. While the game shares obvious similarities with Playdead’s work, its large-scale alien imagery and grounded family-centered narrative also give it a distinct identity within the genre.
Inside
Inside is the clearest point of comparison for Somerville, particularly due to the shared DNA between the development teams. Both games emphasize minimalist storytelling, cinematic pacing, and oppressive environments shaped by mysterious forces. Inside, however, is darker, tighter, and far more mechanically polished, focusing heavily on tension and carefully controlled progression.
Planet Alpha
While more colorful and dreamlike than Somerville, Planet Alpha shares a similar fascination with alien environments, visual immersion, and quiet exploration. Both games place atmosphere and environmental storytelling above combat, creating science-fiction journeys driven primarily by mood and discovery.
If you are looking for more cinematic science-fiction adventures, the genre offers many other memorable atmospheric experiences. Games like The Swapper explore isolation and philosophical themes through puzzle-solving, while Planet of the Eyes delivers another lonely journey across mysterious alien landscapes.
Fans of slow-paced environmental storytelling may also enjoy Another World, whose minimalist science-fiction presentation heavily influenced many modern cinematic platformers.