A few years ago, a little tabletop-RPG-inspired visual novel called Citizen Sleeper arrived on the eShop, expertly crafting an experience that tied together dice-rolling mechanics with a player-driven science fiction narrative. It quickly gained a cult following, leading to a short series of free DLC chapters and the announcement of a sequel. Now that Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector is finally here, we’re pleased to report that one-person team Gareth Damian Martin of Jump Over The Age hasn’t lost a step—this new release is everything that the first game was and then some.
Citizen Sleeper 2 cold opens with your conveniently amnesiac character waking up in the clutches of a gangster boss named Laine giving you an angry speech about his claim of ownership over your synthetic body. Before he can literally pull the plug on you and bring about a very swift Game Over, a mysterious ally spirits you away in a small, stolen starship. Your saviour claims to know you and, knowing that Laine will be painting a target on both your backs, you make for a nearby station to hopefully find the resources needed to disappear and earn your freedom.
Much like its predecessor, Citizen Sleeper 2 places a strong emphasis on its ‘choose your own adventure’ narrative, expertly weaving a series of tense subplots that add up to a compelling story that's hard to put down. Scenes and conflicts are described in beautiful detail, and there’s something about the raw unpredictability of what will come next that keeps you on the edge of your seat. New crew members come and go, and just when it feels like your character is finally getting a grip on things and coming out ahead, something else explodes or goes wrong to send you scrambling again.
This constant tension is the key to Citizen Sleeper 2’s excellent pacing. It excels in conveying the hardship of life out in the Starward Belt, and it explores this in myriad ways through the various interesting conflicts you get caught up in. Against the backdrop of an all-out war between a few mega-corporations far off in the inner systems, everyone stuck on the edge of civilisation is barely scraping by fighting for scraps while resources dwindle. In this dog-eat-dog world, you have to suss out who you can trust and who’s only looking to exploit you as you work, bargain, and steal your way across the stars.
The gameplay at the heart of all this is quite simple to understand and borrows heavily from the TTRPG playbook. Citizen Sleeper 2 is broken up into a series of hubs, each with a handful of nodes that are home to various interactive activities that dangle tasty rewards. Whether a signal station that pays handsomely for your specialised engineering skills or a pub packed with freelancers and loose-lipped spacer crews who know all the local gossip, everything has something to offer and yet you’ll never have enough resources to do it all.
This is because at the start of each ‘cycle’, you roll five six-sided dice and have to ‘spend’ them on an activity. You can preview potential outcomes before you lock in the die, with there being various chances of either a positive, neutral, or negative result depending on the value. Once you’re out of dice, sleeping will get you a fresh set, but this advances time one cycle and potentially throws wrenches in your plans due to various events being time-limited.
As if the time limits didn’t add enough anxiety, one of the new mechanics is a stress meter that can massively upset your plans if you don’t manage it properly. Things like chronic starvation or a negative dice check will add to your stress, and as it goes up, your five dice can be damaged each time you roll for a new cycle. If any of your dice run out of health, they break and become unusable until you spend resources to repair them.
As upsetting as it can be, we loved what this stress system brought to the table, as it behaves like another diminishing resource that you have to carefully balance when choosing how to best act to get your character ahead.
Another new mechanic is Contracts, side quest missions that require planning and prep as you gather the fuel, resources, and crew needed to do something like mine materials out of a derelict ship or disable a wayward corporate drone. Picking crew members with a diverse set of skills is important, as the mission rarely goes according to plan, and victory is hard to come by even when you’re well prepared.
Despite the same focus on making careful decisions, we appreciated how these Contracts manage to feel suitably distinct from other tasks back on the various stations or hubs, notably in how each crew member comes equipped with their own skills and dice. And not only do these vignettes feel like suitably terrifying sorties into unknown danger, but they also act as great vehicles for storytelling and character-building.
Success will often result in upgrade points that can then be invested into a character's skill tree. There are three basic classes you can pick at the beginning which each have different specialities and weaknesses, and each skill influences success chances when they come up in a given task. We went with the Operator class initially, which meant that most hacking or computer-related activities would automatically add a point to the dice value chosen due to the buff to the ‘Interface’ skill that comes with that class.
Given the options, the stat system here manages to have enough complexity that new runs can feel almost entirely different depending on the skills you focus on, but it's never complicated enough that it takes your mind off the narrative. We also appreciated the overall impact of this stat system; it takes time to manage even one upgrade to a single skill, but every update feels like a big advantage.
As for its visuals, the primarily text-based nature of Citizen Sleeper 2 means that it goes for the ‘less is more’ approach. Simple 3D models of space stations and ships in the backdrop are par for the course here, while the foreground is occupied by a sharp, utilitarian UI and detailed character portraits to accompany dialogue. Those looking for spectacle won’t really find it here, but we wouldn’t say that the graphics are disappointing. The rich details given in the text descriptions fill in the gaps well, merging perfectly with the visuals for an immersive experience.
A big part of what creates this immersion is the music, which does an outstanding job of setting an effective atmosphere. Its combination of synthwave and trance perfectly fits the science fiction aesthetic, while creating an air of hope, wonderment, and fear in equal measure as you journey through various stations and subcultures in your quest for peace. We’d recommend you play in portable mode with headphones, as this soundtrack deserves to be appreciated to the fullest extent.
The only real negative Citizen Sleeper 2 is that it suffers from the same issue its predecessor in feeling like a game better navigated with a mouse. It’s not always clear which node or menu option is currently highlighted, which can sometimes lead to accidentally making the wrong selection. Touchscreen controls also aren’t an option here, while the analogue stick or D-pad are serviceable, they feel like awkward means of navigating some of the interfaces.
We wouldn’t say that the slight awkwardness of the control scheme is reason to avoid playing this truly excellent game if Switch is your only available platform, but if you have a PC you regularly play games on, you might prefer to pick it up there.
Conclusion
Citizen Sleeper 2 is an excellent example of a polished sequel, continuing all the things that made its predecessor a beloved indie darling while building upon and expanding those systems with some new and interesting ideas of its own. The decision-driven narrative, tense RPG systems, and incredible soundtrack all come together to make for a game that is almost impossible to put down once you get pulled in. Newcomers who want to see what all the fuss is about will enjoy this as much as players who loved the first game – Citizen Sleeper 2 stands tall as a worthy follow-up.
