As I journeyed through Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector, the concept of a ‘whale fall’ kept resurfacing in my thoughts. You know, when a whale dies and its enormous body sinks to the ocean floor, sustaining a whole community of deep-sea creatures? That’s exactly what’s happening in the world of Citizen Sleeper. Once mighty, the colossal Solheim corporation has crumbled, leaving a new ecosystem born out of its downfall. Everyone now ekes out a living off its remains, scavenging and picking the bones of this once-great entity. The Sleeper’s personal saga is just one of many, all existing alongside the remnants of this fallen giant.
For those who, like me, were captivated by the original Citizen Sleeper, a sequel seemed unnecessary, the first game felt whole and conclusive. What more could there possibly be to explore? It turns out there’s plenty, and I quickly found myself enraptured by this intriguing transhumanist universe once again. I was genuinely mournful when the credits finally rolled. Much like its predecessor, Citizen Sleeper 2 is a thought-provoking, unconventional, and deeply immersive sci-fi journey.
In this installment, you once more take on the role of a Sleeper, a human mind encased in a prosthetic body of wires, skeletal metal, and synthetic tissue. Emerging with amnesia, you retain distant memories while recent ones feel detached from your current existence. After a frantic burst of action, you’re on the run again. You’ve managed to free yourself from your corporate originators, but now you’re hunting by a once-friend turned formidable adversary. Apparently, space crime lords have a thing against you wanting control over your own body.
Thus begins your existence as a fugitive, scraping by with gig work and dice rolls to survive. All told through evocative storytelling, the Sleeper vividly describes the sights, sounds, and smells surrounding you. The game’s visual component is minimal – you’ll mostly see location outlines, clicking on map markers to access events. Citizen Sleeper’s RPG mechanics hinge on a dice economy. Every cycle, you roll five dice and allocate them to activities, progressing clocks until reaching your goals. Better rolls yield better success. Energy and money are crucial, so gig work becomes indispensable for survival.
The first game was confined to one space station, which gradually felt like home with its familiar faces and favored food vendors. That comfort is stripped away in Citizen Sleeper 2. Now you’re a drifter, constantly moving between multiple stations and satellites across The Belt to avoid detection.
This nomadic lifestyle underscores the most significant evolution from CS1 to CS2: palpable tension. It’s an electrifying kind of tension. Citizen Sleeper 2 amplifies the urgency of evading capture and making a living, crafting a more thrilling experience. A critique of the first game was its relative ease in achieving a stable situation. Here, comfort is an elusive dream. The game’s relentless nature hit me on Day Two when my companion awakened me with grim news – “we’re in trouble.” If your Sleeper can’t catch a break, neither can you.
There’s an exhilarating intensity woven throughout. Citizen Sleeper 2 introduces new mechanics that heighten the stakes. Take Contracts, for instance; high-risk, high-reward missions that require you to reach a location and complete a task within a set time frame. Gathering a competent crew is essential, with each member offering unique skills and additional dice.
These contracts are fraught with potential pitfalls. High stress levels are a significant concern; each failed skill check adds stress, and overwhelmed crew members abandon the mission. Too much stress for your Sleeper results in cracked, unusable dice. Crisis events triggered by failed checks must be managed to keep the mission alive.
Contracts, with their intricate balance of dice allocation, stress counters, and ticking clocks, are endlessly entertaining. Strategizing with my crew’s dice, analyzing numbers and symbols, and risking it all on bold moves felt like handling delicate machinery ready to blow if not handled just right. The thrill of a 50% chance outcome kept pulling me back for more risk-taking, far bolder than my plays in the first game.
Selecting the right crew is crucial. You must anticipate and counter several failure points. Your Sleeper has a defined RPG-style role with upgradeable skills, yet one skill remains untouched, a permanent gap that necessitates depending on your team, mirroring real life.
Confronting events that necessitate skills absent in your crew spells trouble. Initially, characters might seem like mere dice sets, but they emerge as fellow survivors with rich backstories. It’s vital to evaluate their abilities, yet they evolve into more than mere assets – they are kindred spirits, akin to your Sleeper. Your weathered ship becomes a sanctuary for these lost souls on The Belt.
Encountering familiar faces from the first game provides a bittersweet comfort. Although your Sleeper differs from the previous one, seeing these old acquaintances highlights the passage of time and its wear, underscoring the harsh transformations wrought by corporate exploitation.
Citizen Sleeper 2’s writing excels, crafting a rich, resonant narrative as vivid as before. Gareth Damian Martin skillfully animates bustling locales and imbues machines with life – it’s writing that commands you to appreciate each line. I captured so many quotes, intent on preserving them like treasured pages from a beloved book.
The story’s direction during crises, despite going awry, often captivated me even more than smooth moments. Citizen Sleeper 2 weaves a tapestry of unpredictable RPG-style choices, free from dice, driven by skill, thrusting you into intriguing turns, be they attempting a mutiny or intimate dialogues with sentient machines – it’s a thrilling ride.
A standout narrative involves Serafin, whose connection to the Sleeper is disrupted by amnesia, stripping away shared memories. The poignancy of his loss and the Sleeper’s disorientation poignantly capture human loss and reconnection, thematic undercurrents throughout the game.
Together you begin to rebuild, reflecting the broader themes of transformation and new beginnings from past wreckage. The game explores these profound human narratives amidst discussions of transhumanism, capitalism, power, and technology.
In Citizen Sleeper’s world, the stories belong to its common folk – the scrappy scavengers, tireless engineers, and resilient workers of The Belt. I long for more grounded sci-fi tales about such ‘nobodies,’ rather than glitzy heroics, making Citizen Sleeper 2 a standout in 2025.
Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector lands on PC, Xbox Game Pass, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, and PlayStation 5 on January 31. This review is based on a PC code provided by the publisher.
