How Long Does It Take To Beat Somerville?

The recently released "Somerville" is the debut title from independent studio Jumpship, which explores the apocalyptic aftermath of an alien invasion. One of the studio's co-founders, Dino Patti, was one of the creators of the popular Playdead studio dark indie atmospheric adventure games "Limbo" and "Inside." For this reason, many have come to regard "Somerville" as a sort of spiritual successor to these titles. This has generated a lot of excitement for the new adventure game, but it's also brought up a few questions about the title's length.

"Limbo" and "Inside" were both fairly short games, even for players who took the time to complete optional tasks such as finding the secret level in "Limbo" or collecting all of the orbs in "Inside." They could each be completed in just a few hours. This has left many fans curious as to what sort of game-length players should be able to expect from Jumpship's new title. Well, several gamers and news outlets have completed the game and shared their times so that fans can start to get an idea of how long "Somerville" takes to beat. Here's what they found.

One of the most reliable ways to find the average length of a game is to check HowLongToBeat, a site that aggregates the average playtime based on those that are reported by numerous players. Several gamers have been polled by HowLongToBeat on the length of "Somerville" so far, and they have reported an average playtime of just 3 hours and 30 minutes. This isn't surprising at all considering "Limbo" and "Inside" both have remarkably similar average playtimes.

Reviewers have reported incrementally longer times than most players it seems. IGN called it, "a slightly-under-four-hour quest." Gamespot wrote that it was four hours long, and PC Gamer stated that it had a "four to five-hour runtime." Malindy Hetfeld of Rock Paper Shotgun reported the longest potential runtime, claiming that it could be six hours at the most, but even she seemed to think that the game could have benefited from a slightly longer runtime.

So it seems that, although players may find a lot to love about the hauntingly beautiful atmosphere in "Somerville," they probably shouldn't expect to be spending that much time with it. The game is currently available on PC through Steam and Epic, as well as Xbox One and Xbox Series X/S.