Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector review

Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector begins with a greater urgency than its predecessor. You once again play as a Sleeper, a digitised human consciousness transplanted into an android slave, who's broken free of their contracted servitude. But this time you're on the run from a nasty gang leader called Laine. If being in debt to corporations isn't bad enough, he's essentially the loan shark.

The threat of his closing in on you ramps up the stakes considerably, while also giving the sequel a new structure. No longer confined to a single location, you've got a stolen ship to traverse the rest of the Starward Belt. That also means besides managing your stress levels and earning enough to keep yourself from starving, you also need to earn enough cryo to buy enough fuel so that you can stay on the move, as your pursuer is constantly on your tail.

Otherwise, the game's cycles (or days) are similar to before, playing out like a tabletop RPG with dice rolls and skill checks. You're given a random roll of dice at the start of each cycle, which you have to use to try to complete a choice of tasks, from ones that unlock new locations or advance the story, or jobs that can earn you a handful of much needed cryo.

Roll with it, in Citizen Sleeper 2

It can be dismaying if you get a bad set of dice, but it's that dilemma of whether to roll with the punches when the chips are down, or to end a cycle early to prioritise self-care (that is if you can afford to do that) that makes each cycle so tense and especially relatable in this age of precarity.

Fortunately, for contracts, more tactically focused quests that's new to Citizen Sleeper 2, you also have the aid of characters you can recruit as you explore the Belt, such as data extractor Juni or air bike courier Kadet. Each has their own distinct specialty, as well as backstories with relevant questlines that further flesh out the world. They also come with their own dice to help out during contracts, though they'll also drop out if you max their stress levels.

Your sleeper also has a new push ability for each cycle, depending on the class you choose at the start, which while raising stress can help turn the fortunes of your lowest dice around if you're in a pinch. But if you really want to bet the odds, there's also the chance of rolling glitch dice, which rolls either a 1 or 6, but where you only have a 20% chance of the latter, odds that you nonetheless may force yourself to risk.

Sometimes, those odds can feel overwhelming. In one early contract that I was ill-prepared for, a shortage of supplies meant I spent each cycle starving, exacerbating the state of my dice until all were broken, while the goal was still nowhere in sight.

Found in space

Yet as oppressive as conditions can feel, Citizen Sleeper 2 is ultimately a hopeful game with its human and empathetic writing, including a contract where you can help mount a peaceful workers' rebellion. While a text-heavy game that's more akin to a visual novel, the presentation of each zoomed out space hub provides a kind of meditative distance and the UI is always clear on the progression of tasks, the dice available, with the faintest of cracked lines something to pay attention to.

Although the tension of being pursued subsides in the latter part of the game, that also gives you breathing room in how you want to explore more of the Belt, whether that's completing more contracts or deciding how to pursue the endgame.

At the heart of Citizen Sleeper 2 are the different characters you meet, carrying their own flaws and traumas, slowly opening up and asking for your help, even as your own artificial body is facing its own breakdown. In the end, you're not just on a ship with a ragtag crew but a found family, bracing the odds together.

Citizen Sleeper 2: verdict

Insightful writing and tightly controlled tabletop RPG pacing makes this new expanded sequel worth your time, even if you're new to the Citizen Sleeper universe.