Review of Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector

As I delved into Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector, I couldn’t help but envision a ‘whale fall’. When a whale dies, its massive body descends into the deep ocean, sustaining an entire ecosystem of sea life. Similarly, the universe of Citizen Sleeper unfolds after a catastrophic event. Set in a sci-fi landscape shadowed by the collapsed empire of the once-great Solheim corporation, it depicts people surviving by scavenging the remnants, akin to creatures feasting on the remains of a titanic being. The Sleeper’s journey is just a fragment of a larger narrative, all thriving off the legacy of this fallen giant.

When I first approached Citizen Sleeper 2, my initial thoughts were that the original didn’t really require a sequel. It felt complete. But, I was pleasantly surprised by how much more there was to explore in this harsh yet captivating transhuman world. By the time the credits rolled, I felt a sense of loss. Much like its predecessor, this sequel is reflective, subversive, and utterly engrossing.

You find yourself in the role of yet another Sleeper, a human consciousness woven into a prosthetic form of cables, skeletal metal, and synthetic flesh. You wake up amnesic, with your long-term memories intact while short-term ones seem detached. Soon, you’re fleeing again—a corporately engineered being needing to escape what was once a friendly ally turned adversary. Space gangsters, it turns out, have no patience for autonomy.

Thus begins your life on the run, surviving on gig work and the luck of the dice. The story is vividly told through descriptive text, with your Sleeper narrating the surroundings’ sights, scents, and sounds. On-screen, the outer views of locations pop up, allowing you to click on points on a map to attend events. The RPG system of Citizen Sleeper revolves around a dice economy. At the beginning of each cycle (a day), you’re given five dice to allocate to various tasks, advancing timers until objectives are complete. Higher rolls yield better outcomes, making energy and funds crucial; gig work becomes essential to make a living.

The original tale unfolded solely on one space station, fostering familiarity—where to snag regular gigs, the best food stalls, and reliable acquaintances. Such comfort has evaporated in the sequel. The new gameplay involves constant movement across a network called The Belt, avoiding prolonged stays to evade capture.

This nomadic approach introduces the biggest shift from the first to the second game: tension. Oh, the tension is delicious. Citizen Sleeper 2 cranks up the pressures of being hunted and struggling to survive. Before, it was relatively easy to find your comfort zone; not so much here. I realized this early on when my shipmate shook me awake with a rather ominous warning: “we’re in trouble.” This Sleeper’s journey offers no reprieve, and neither will yours.

Diving into this sequel is thrilling. It boldly expands its systems, introducing Contracts—high-stakes missions requiring you to fly somewhere and complete a task under time constraints. You’ll need to recruit a crew, each with unique skills and dice at their disposal.

Plenty can go awry during these missions, with stress levels being a significant challenge. Failing a skill check raises stress, potentially sidelining a crew member if it gets too high. If your character experiences excessive stress, their dice become unusable until repaired, which spells trouble. These delicate tasks, with all their counters, crises, and ticking clocks, are wickedly fun. Deciding where to assign dice, gambling on risky actions—it’s as thrilling as tinkering with a volatile device. I can’t count the times I’ve silently prayed for a favorable outcome in a 50/50 chance scenario—it’s an adrenaline rush, pushing me to take bolder risks than I ever dared in the first game.

Choosing the right crew is essential. You must hedge against the myriad potential mishaps. Your Sleeper’s class provides RPG-style abilities, but some will always remain locked, necessitating reliance on others for your shortcomings—just like real life.

You’re thrown into scenarios demanding skills your team may lack, which can spell disaster. While initially, you might view your team as dice sets to manipulate, over time, you recognize them as fellow survivors with tangled backstories. Deciding who joins your crew permanently becomes integral, revealing their stories beyond mere utility. They become companions, like the Sleeper. Your ship transforms into a sanctuary for them, a home in the chaotic expanse of The Belt.

Crossing paths with familiar characters from the first game proves both comforting and bittersweet. Your current sleeper may differ from the previous one, but encountering old faces resonates deeply. The time and the ruthless world have changed them, a stark reminder of how corporate capitalism can mark a person.

Citizen Sleeper 2 is rich in evocative writing, as sharp and profound as its predecessor. Gareth Damian Martin brilliantly injects life into teeming cities and machinery. I’ve collected screenshots of countless lines, eternally etched in my memory. My screenshot folder, brimming with virtual travel snapshots, feels like a cherished book’s marked pages.

Even when the narrative goes awry, it’s just as captivating, sometimes even more so. The RPG-style choices impact the plot during story segments—no dice rolls, just skills at your disposal. The unpredictability ensures something intriguing always unfolds. I’ve drilled into frozen asteroids, failed revolts on labor ships, aided colony foundations on meteorites, conversed with machines’ dying minds—it’s been a thrilling ride.

One standout narrative revolves around Serafin. He’s among the first you encounter. You share history, but your amnesia wipes those memories. It’s heartbreaking when Serafin must grieve a friend you can’t remember. This shared loss, felt keenly by both, weaves a web of powerful human experiences.

Yet, they strive to rebuild, a microcosm of a world forever changing. The Sleeper, and their realm, are in perpetual transformation, constructing anew from the ruins, viewing destruction not as an end, but a beginning.

Among musings of transhumanism, capitalism, and technology are authentic human tales. No heroes, spaceships, or space wizards—just regular people struggling to endure. It’s grounded, a narrative we need more of in sci-fi. Citizen Sleeper’s universe belongs to its scavengers and engineers amidst the asteroid belt. I prefer these gritty narratives over the polished allure of Starfield, Star Wars Outlaws, or Cyberpunk 2077. Citizen Sleeper 2 delivers, marking a phenomenal start to 2025.

Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector launches on January 31 for PC, Xbox Game Pass, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch, and PlayStation 5. This review is based on a PC code provided by the publisher.