Summary
- Xbox console exclusive Somerville may be coming to PlayStation, as evidence suggests a list of achievements for the game has surfaced on the PlayStation Network.
- Jumpship's Somerville, a platforming and puzzle game with a mysterious story, received acclaim as one of the best Xbox Game Pass games since its release in November 2022.
- If Somerville does come to PlayStation, it wouldn't be surprising considering the co-founder of Jumpship also saw his previous titles, Limbo and Inside, release on various platforms beyond Xbox.
Xbox console exclusive Somerville might soon be coming to PlayStation, some newly emerged evidence suggests. This development arrives mere day after one former Xbox exclusive was shadow-dropped for PlayStation.
Somerville is the first-ever game from Jumpship, a British studio co-founded by Dino Patti, best known as the co-founder of Limbo and Inside developer Playdead. Much like those two titles, Somerville offers a combination of platforming and physics-based puzzles, as well as a mysterious story and a largely desolate atmosphere. And though Jumpship's inaugural title wasn't as universally acclaimed as Limbo or Inside, it's still been touted as one of the best Xbox Game Pass games since its November 2022 release.
Achievement tracker Exophase recently scraped a list of Somerville achievements from the PlayStation Network, suggesting that this Xbox console exclusive might soon be coming to Sony's consoles. The newly spotted list contains 11 gold and platinum trophies, with its contents being identical to the game's PC and Xbox achievements. The same source labels Somerville as a PS4 release, although that would also make it playable on the PS5 thanks to the newer console's backward compatibility.
In a May 2023 interview with Sports Illustrated, Patti revealed that Jumpship struck a "pretty good deal" with Microsoft in order to make Somerville a day one release on Xbox Game Pass. And while the studio officially hasn't outright confirmed that this agreement included a period of timed Xbox exclusivity, that's plausibly the case, not least because Patti insisted that he still prefers selling games outright over leveraging Netflix-like distribution via Xbox Game Pass.
This newly surfaced list of PS4 achievements suggests that Somerville's presumed period of timed Xbox exclusivity is coming to an end. If the track record of Patti's other studio is any indication, Jumpship might not be content with merely bringing its first-ever game to Sony's consoles following its PC and Xbox debut. Namely, both Limbo and Inside have released on a wide variety of other platforms, including the Nintendo Switch and mobile devices.
Should Somerville end up making the jump from Xbox to PlayStation, it won't be the first game to do so in recent times. The latest title to make such a transition was High on Life, a quirky sci-fi FPS from Squanch Games, a studio founded by Rick and Morty creator Justin Roiland. About a month prior to that game's unexpected PlayStation release, Ebb Software announced that its Xbox console exclusive Scorn will make its way to the PS5 in the final quarter of 2023.
Source: Sports Illustrated