Other typically solid things, like stairs or bits of the floor, sometimes just let you clip right through. Most notable was the dog that joins you for part of your journey, which the game seems to treat as an ethereal being - you can just walk right through that puppy. I was never sure if I was going to clip through an object or not. Exploring these apocalyptic environments were some of my favorite parts of the game, but they were marred by some of the game’s fundamental flaws. You move through a smoldering countryside to a highway littered with abandoned cars, then to a field filled with rows of empty tents. The world outside your home is now a wasteland filled with more mysterious blocky rubble, and all that is left for you to do is wander through it in search of your family. At a certain point in the game, you gain the ability to solidify the melted goo, which adds a new level of complication onto the puzzles. Doing so requires a light source, and many of the game’s puzzles focus around using this mechanic in different ways. Soon after waking up, you discover that the blinding light gave you the power to interact with the strange alien debris, allowing you to melt down blocky hunks of it into goo. I wasn’t sure if they had been killed, taken or had just left me for dead. This sudden scene change warmed me to “Somerville”’s story. You black out, and when you awaken, your family is gone. It’s a person wearing some sort of space suit, and when you reach out your hand to help them, you are enveloped in a blinding light. You huddle in the basement with your wife and son, but something tears through the house. Suddenly, disaster strikes, and strange, blocky spikes start raining down from the sky. The way that the game weaves between objects in the foreground, like when you’re running through a forest, provides a cinematic feel that I love.Īfter the intro, the game opens to you and your family sharing a quiet moment on the couch. I can’t say I’ve ever thought about a game’s camera systems this much before, but “Somerville” sticks with me. Similar film-esque details appear throughout the rest of the game. The game’s cinematic focus is clear from the opening cutscene - a long tracking shot of a car driving down a curvy road while the credits are shown, eventually ending with a title card. I don’t want to judge “Somerville” solely in comparison to the Playdead games, but I think it’s a good way to see how the game attempts to innovate on past successes. “Somerville,” like “Limbo” and “Inside,” tells its story without any dialogue. The added dimension makes exploring the game’s detailed environments much more enjoyable, and builds another level of complexity to some of the puzzles.
“Somerville,” developed and published by independent studio Jumpship, follows the same physics-based story game model as its Playdead predecessors, but adds a third dimension for players to move in. “Somerville” was clearly heavily inspired by the Playdead games it does stand out in its own ways - though this isn’t always a positive.
Learning that the two had separated made me a bit worried about what each of their future projects would look like without one another. Apparently, Patti was removed from the studio after creative disputes. The game was developed in part by Dino Patti, a co-founder of another game studio called Playdead - creator of “Limbo” and “Inside,” the latter of which had such an effect on me that it inspired me to start writing about video games. After the 2014 invasion, it opened another studio in Malta, and in 2022, after Russia invaded again, owner Saber Interactive told all employees in Kyiv that they could relocate, but the war has undoubtedly had a major impact.When I learned about “Somerville,” I felt torn. The war in Ukraine does mean the team has more pressing concerns, of course. There's absolutely no information about this new game whatsoever, so let's hope we hear about whatever it is this year. It will also have multiplayer, apparently.Īlongside a new Metro, 4A is also working on something brand new. After Exodus, the logical step would be to go fully open-world, but 4A has said they are "committed to delivering a great story driven single player experience", so perhaps the studio will stick with the semi-open model of the 2019 game.
#Playdead new game Pc
The first is another Metro game, which is being built specifically for PC and new consoles, with a "complete overhaul of our engine and renderer to take advantage of the new power, storage, and hardware supported ray tracing afforded by the new consoles." There are no details on how the game will play, however. Ukrainian studio 4A Games is reportedly working on two new projects.
(Image credit: 4A Games via Nahobino on Steam)
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