Somerville Teaser Shows Rural Area Invaded By Aliens

Ever since Dino Patti split up with Playdead, a large part of their fanbase started wondering what was next for him. Today we get a glimpse of the next project he’s involved with. It’s called Somerville, and it is the brainchild of one Chris Olsen. There’s very little info about it, including a short but mesmerizing teaser trailer.

The developers describe it as a sci-fi adventure game which follows several characters at the beginning of a global catastrophe. Seeing how the trailer is just a minut of some farmhouses with alien monoliths in the distance, we’re going to assume the catastrophe involves extraterrestrials. Still no word on what the game will look like – the description suggests something like Everybody’s Gone to The Rapture, while Patti’s involvement points to some puzzles or even light platforming action. There’s a single sentence about it on the game’s site: “IN NEON SKY OUR KIN ARE LOST, TILL FUTURE HAS RETURNED TO DUST”. That’s pretty cryptic. Ominous, as well.

The art style looks pretty amazing, though, with pastel colors and soft lightning. Lovely stuff. Olsen, who has a background in animation, has been working on the game for three years as a personal project. A few years and a playable prototype later, he enlisted Patti, presumably to help with logistics, and maybe even invest some of that sweet, sweet buyout money. They’ve gathered a few more people since, including Lyndon Holand, who worked on soundtracks for Virginia and Aviary Attorney.

And that’s all we know. Hopefully there’s more info soon. There’s no talk of a release date, so we presume Somerville isn’t all that close to release. There’s a newsletter you can sign up for on the game’s official site, which is probably the best way to keep tabs on the project.