My experience with Citizen Sleeper was something of an accident. I bought some new games to play on a transatlantic flight, and after bouncing off a few action RPGs, found myself absorbed in a quiet, contemplative narrative game about life on a long-abandoned space station settled by those with nowhere else to go. I finished the entirety of Citizen Sleeper in one sitting and got zero sleep on the flight. Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector promises to take me back to this world and tell new stories in a larger scope that includes traveling between multiple space stations. I was excited to get my hands on it and dive into new adventures.
The Future is Dim
Like its predecessor, Citizen Sleeper 2 is set in a far future where powerful megacorporations war for control of the wealthy inner systems while those on the margins are forced into a meager existence in a series of ramshackle space stations at the edge of space known as the Belt. The very concept of the sleeper you play as is a testament to the horrors of corporate rule. People license their minds to the Essen-Arp corporation, who copy them into robotic bodies sentenced to a lifetime of slave labor: sleepers. Any attempt to resist or escape is met with brutal violence.
Corporate dystopias are a classic science fiction setting, but Citizen Sleeper 2 distinguishes itself by focusing on the day-to-day struggles of the marginalized. There is no grand revolution to take back control. The corporations are too powerful. At the same time, the very act of your sleeper striving for an existence where they can follow their hopes and dreams of a better life is itself a small act of rebellion. Similarly, the people you meet on your journey are doing their best to live and find meaning on the fringes of this cold, oppressive system.
Welcome to the Belt
Citizen Sleeper 2 brings its setting and characters to life with some of the best science fiction writing you’ll find in a game. The narrative is structured around your sleeper’s journey and central obstacle. Meanwhile, other characters and their stories intersect you, weaving in and out in a natural way that makes the Belt feel lived in. The prose is thoughtful, stopping in quiet moments to reflect on a sleeper’s strange existence, the ways of the Belt, or the relationships you forge with the people you meet. It’s also evocative and often beautiful, artfully conjuring images of beings, experiences, and emotions that defy easy description and knowing when to leave the reader to make their own inference.
The people you meet, despite their transient nature, are compelling and nuanced characters. Everyone in the Belt is ultimately a victim of the corporations, but they each choose to respond to the impossibility of their situations in different and sometimes surprising ways. Every storyline felt worth pursuing, and once my role in that character’s story was finished and they had moved on, I missed them, even antagonists. Citizen Sleeper 2 packs every one of its interactions, no matter how brief or passing, full of weight and meaning.
All We Have is Each Other
The main and recurring cast consists of your starting ally Serafin and several characters who can be recruited as crew for your ship. These characters have their own storyline quests, but also accompany you and build a relationship with you throughout your story. Citizen Sleeper 2 features lots of small dialogue trees that don’t impact the overall story, but let you define the relationships you have with your companions. I enjoyed playing out my story through these choices, for example, treating an obviously suspicious interloper at first with skepticism before opening up and choosing to believe in her once I saw the noble heart underneath. And I found that when I did reach the climactic scenes of my companions’ stories where I was asked to make choices with consequences, the time I had spent building my relationships with them through the dialogue made my ultimate choices feel natural and authentic to my character.
My favorite thing about Citizen Sleeper 2 is its empathy. Your sleeper can’t become some self-sufficient hero because no one in the Belt can. The story opens with you entrusting yourself to your allies in uncertain circumstances, and while you can help the people you meet on your journey, you need them just as much. Life in the Belt is difficult and bad things happen to good people. Others, and you if you choose, can respond by acting selfishly, lashing out, and betraying those who trusted you. However, Citizen Sleeper 2 gently reassures that yes you can be angry, but it’s also ok to look beyond this, to not let someone’s worst moment in an unfair world define them. After all, people are just as capable of good and you only got as far as you did because of the kindness of people who knew they would never be repaid, at least not directly by you. The one thing the people of the Belt have amidst their challenging lives is community, and ultimately the Belt will live and die by its community. It’s a beautiful thematic message about how, even when it’s impossible to directly end systematic injustice and oppression, there is strength and meaning in solidarity and kindness, and this strength keeps lit the flame that might one day grow into a blaze that can change the world.
Tabletop Influences
Citizen Sleeper 2 retains the light dice mechanics of its predecessor. Each cycle, you roll five dice and you can take actions, either to progress storylines or to gather money and resources needed to keep you and your crew going, by assigning dice. Depending on the die roll and any corresponding skill modifiers, you achieve a positive, neutral, or negative outcome. Actions also have a risk rating that indicates how big the rewards are should you succeed, as well as how dire the consequences should you fail.
There’s not a ton of strategic depth. Most decisions come down to when to press your luck and risk damage for quick progress versus when to bide your time and hope for better dice next cycle. That said, I enjoyed the dice mechanics as a way to roleplay my character. In most cases, there are multiple avenues to advance the narrative, each mapped to a different skill, and which one you choose might come down to whether you imagine yourself infiltrating a hidden storehouse by breaking down the front door or hacking a terminal in a deserted alley. The dice mechanics also add a bit of urgency to an often contemplative experience. Putz around too long waiting to roll sixes and your enemies might catch up with you.
Mission Accepted
Citizen Sleeper 2 ups the stakes with contracts that see you and your crew undertake a variety of dangerous missions. The core dice mechanics are the same, but you’re on a much stricter deadline and only get one chance to complete the objectives. For one, you have limited supplies and if you run out you and your crew begin to starve. Adding to this, crises can trigger and result in negative consequences or outright failure if not dealt with quickly. There’s an additional layer of press your luck too with your character’s push ability. You can gain stress to reroll your or your crewmates’ dice, but accumulate too much and your dice can break, rendering them unusable for the rest of the contract.
It might sound crazy to think of dragging dice to boxes as thrilling gameplay, but I found the contracts, especially those later in the story, edge-of-my-seat tense. This is of course largely due to Citizen Sleeper 2’s outstanding writing and development of characters I became highly invested in. However, I also found the dice mechanics made things feel tangible in a way they wouldn’t in an on-rails story. I felt like I was there in the moment leading my crew, and if I made the wrong choices the possibility of failure was real. And indeed, beyond failing the contract, there are choices that have permanent consequences.
Art, Sound, and Extras
The aesthetic of Citizen Sleeper 2 comes together to build just the right vibe for its contemplative science fiction. The color palette is full of yellows, blacks, and blues–scatter lights in the void of space. Meanwhile, the soundtrack offers minimalistic electronica, setting the stage while giving you space to think and process. The highlight of the presentation is definitely the hand-drawn character portraits. They’re highly detailed and full of personality that lets new characters make an immediate impact.
Citizen Sleeper 2 has little in the way of options or extra features. Notably, it has forced autosave, so you can’t go back and undo your failures. I enjoyed the way this made me live in the moment rather than agonize over my choices. There are also three difficulty settings. I played on the default risky difficulty, and given the lightweight mechanics and emphasis on narrative, see little reason to make the game harder.
The first Citizen Sleeper saw additional stories added via free DLCs, so it’s possible that Citizen Sleeper 2 will eventually see the same. The ending wraps up the main plot threads in a satisfying way, yet also looks toward the future, so there is space for more if the developers choose. Either way, the final scene emphasizes that Citizen Sleeper 2 is a story about change and beginnings, not endings, and I found it the perfect capstone to my experience.
Verdict
Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector’s science fiction narrative stands out for its focus on the downtrodden and message of empathy, delivered through some of the best writing you’ll find in the game medium. I highly recommend it to anyone interested in narrative games or thoughtful science fiction.
CITIZEN SLEEPER 2: STARWARD VECTOR IS HIGHLY RECOMMENDED
If you are looking for another indie game with a detective story, you may enjoy our review of No Case Should Remain Unsolved.
Many thanks go to Fellow Traveller for a PC review code for Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector.
A veteran of Oregon Trail and Battletoads, Wes has been playing and talking about games for as long as he can remember. He’s down to try almost anything, and he especially enjoys games with gripping narrative experiences.
