With a new found sense of tension, and showpiece Contract missions, Citizen Sleeper is transformed. This follow-up has improved the RPG formula in every way.
There’s a moment a few hours into Citizen Sleeper 2 where I’m on the back foot and failing. The dice I use to do things in the game are breaking, and the mission I was confident about finishing is ending in failure. Timers tick down before I can do anything about them. Enemies I’m running from catch up with me and beat me down and break me. Things explode. Whatever I do, I can’t seem to get a foothold in the game, and I realise at that moment I’m not having fun.
Simultaneously I realise: I love it.
Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector reviewDeveloper: Jump Over the AgePublisher: Fellow TravellerPlatform: Played on PCAvailability: Out 31st January on PC (Steam, GOG, Epic, Humble), Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series S/X, and Game Pass
Citizen Sleeper 2 isn’t afraid to let you fail. A whole new suite of mechanics is designed to pile the pressure on and put you in uncomfortable situations. And knowing you can fail does a tremendously powerful thing: it grips you, pulls you forward, and makes you pay close attention to what you’re doing. It pulls you deeper into the sci-fi world, and in Citizen Sleeper 2, it’s as though a whole new side of the game has emerged, coming forward to energise the tender-hearted formula of the original. Under tension, the series is transformed.
At the heart of it all is the game’s new set-up: a ship and crew. This time, you’re not stuck on one station but immediately, in a ship, and on the run. From the beginning, you’re also partnered with another other person called Serafin, who saved you from a vicious crime lord – Laine – the latter of whom will continue to dog you throughout the game. You – a sleeper (and a different sleeper to the one in the first game) were Laine’s property, an android remotely connected to a person somewhere in the galaxy, destined to work off their debt. But as in Citizen Sleeper 1, there’s something different about you, something more human, something that’s changing, and you will have to find out what.
Citizen Sleeper 2 – Launch Trailer Watch on YouTube
This ship and crew set-up opens up the game enormously. It alters the structure to be about flying around an asteroid belt to different locales – asteroids, clusters of floating ships, small space stations, larger space stations, hidden habitats on moons, mining stations – and what this gives the game in abundance is variation, visually and tonally. Each of these places looks and feels like somewhere else, and has a personality of its own. Some have neon pink pops of colour and cyberpunk stylings, while others are icy asteroids with crevices where humanity clings like barnacles. Their smaller scale also allows the camera to get right in and blow up the dinky dwellings for us, so we can better imagine life there.