Reviews

Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector

Citizen Sleeper 2 - Key Art

Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector is the sequel to 2022’s space faring, dice-rolling indie hit, Citizen Sleeper. I loved the original; it seemed to come out of nowhere and ended up cracking my Top 10 List that year. With a similar lack of fanfare, Citizen Sleeper 2 is now here. Featuring a standalone story and a much wider world to explore, as well as a few new twists on the dice-based gameplay, Citizen Sleeper 2 builds upon its predecessor in subtle, but deeply impactful ways.

You play as a Sleeper, a being with an artificial body controlled by an emulated human mind. The game starts with your memory in the process of being wiped in some kind of data transfer gone wrong. Your only apparent friend, Serafin, spirits you to safety before the menacing crime lord Laine can finish his mysterious mission.

Citizen Sleeper 2 - Serafin

Thus begins your journey through The Starward Belt, a series of settlements built into the sides of asteroids, abandoned space stations and derelict spaceships, all relics of the now fallen Solheim corporation. On your humble craft, fondly named ‘The Rig’, you’ll build a crew, complete contracts, salvage precious data or scrap, meet wonderful characters, and unearth hidden truths.

Citizen Sleeper 2 plays like a visual novel, with gorgeous character art and low-fi 3D environments accompanying dialogue scenes. As you enter a specific area of a station or settlement, you’ll be able to roll a series of five dice (randomly assigned each day or ‘cycle’), to complete actions. These range from working a shift in a bar or on a docked ship, to completing intense time-sensitive contracts with your crew. There are positive, neutral and negative outcomes, all determined by a percentage chance that varies depending on which numbered dice you choose. The higher the number, the more likely your chance of success.

Citizen Sleeper 2 - Contract

Going with a one, for example, will mean you have a 50% chance of a neutral outcome and 50% for a negative one. A six, on the other hand, will give you 100% chance of a positive outcome. With only five dice to use per cycle and all kinds of time and resource constraints (fuel, supplies, energy) to be aware of, you really need to strategise. This was largely how the first game played too, but the sequel introduces a couple of new systems and scenarios to shake things up.

First is the new stress meter. Now, when you get a negative outcome, your Sleeper or crew members can get stressed. As this meter increases, rolling certain numbers each cycle will actually damage the dice. Damage the dice enough, and they will break entirely, leaving you with fewer actions per day. You can of course repair your dice, but this can’t be done while out on a contract, and costs time and scrap, both of which are precious resources in The Belt.

The second new mechanic is glitched dice. As your artificial body breaks down when landing on negative outcomes, your glitch meter will go up. The higher this is, the more likely you are to get a glitched dice in a new cycle. These dice give you a 20% chance for a positive outcome, and a whopping 80% chance of a negative outcome. The only way to lower your glitch meter is to use the glitched dice.

Citizen Sleeper 2 - Station

I actually restarted my play through a few hours in as I realised I’d been playing it wrong. Or rather, I’d been playing it like the relatively simpler first game. In Citizen Sleeper 2, often the most important decision to make is when not to roll a die, as opposed to simply choosing which of your dice to roll in what order. Even on the recommended difficulty, it was challenging to get out of a bad situation once your dice were glitched or broken due to high stress. I suppose there’s a real life lesson here: rather than pushing forward at all costs, it’s sometimes better to call it a day and hope for better dice tomorrow.

In my Top 10 List of 2022, I described the first Citizen Sleeper as “a game whose world lives an expansive life mostly in your mind.” This remains true of the sequel too. The graphics and environments may be simple, but the writing is extremely evocative and heartfelt. The distinct and beautiful character art sparks your imagination, and the dialogue and descriptive writing completes the painting in your head. I can bring to mind specific moments from the narrative of Citizen Sleeper 2 that feel as if they played out in cutscenes, and yet they’re just images conjured with words.

A wizened woman standing alone in her cockpit, staring out at the stars as you drift away from her in The Rig. A black cat floating around in zero-g, trying to slurp up bubbles of liquid. Your crew gliding across the inside of an enormous, dark sphere of empty space, red lights of the inner walls of the sphere blinking in the distance, motes of dust floating in torchlight.

Citizen Sleeper 2 - Dice

Your role in the world of Citizen Sleeper 2 is a small one. There is mention of a fallen corporate empire and a devastating war going on in the distant inner systems. But as a Sleeper, you only skim the surface of these deep, conceptual lakes. There’s something so tantalising about this. The story of Starward Vector isn’t about these interstellar dilemmas, it’s about the everyday people struggling to survive in their shadow.

In this way, despite the constant struggle to maintain resources and combat stress, Citizen Sleeper 2 is ultimately a game about hope. About community, and how together we have the power to bring about change, even while the wider world screams and rages in the distance. In these turbulent times we live in, a game like this becomes more than entertainment, it’s a salve, and a blueprint.

Rating: 9/10

Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector was reviewed on PC with a code provided by the publisher.