Citizen Sleeper 2 is the good kind of stressful

More than once while playing Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector, I found myself holding my breath in anticipation as I made a critical decision. As you play, you influence the story and complete missions by using dice, and that means that big choices are often subject to chance. When things went well, I would exhale and feel my body relax — that was, until I had to pick my next die.

Starward Vector is a sequel to 2022’s Citizen Sleeper, and it plays similarly: it’s a text-heavy game that tells a cyberpunk story about a “Sleeper,” or a robot that has been infused with a human mind, that’s fleeing from a criminal overlord (who, eventually, you’ll work to take down). As you play, you’ll use tabletop RPG mechanics to accomplish various tasks so you can survive in the harsh galaxy.

In Starward Vector’s equivalent of a day, the game will “roll” up to five dice that you’ll use as items to influence potential decisions or actions. The higher the roll, the higher the chance you can use it for a positive outcome. And as much as possible, you want to get positive outcomes: neutral or negative ones can sap energy or add “stress” to your character, which can lead to harmful effects such as losing a die slot or having a crewmate back out of a mission. (Your crewmates have their own dice, so losing them puts you at a significant disadvantage.)

Most of the game comes down to trying to prevent or manage those harmful effects. Do you risk using a die with a 1, which has a 50 percent chance of a negative outcome, with a mission on the line? Or do you instead opt to use the last of your supplies to refresh your die at the risk of starving next cycle? As you complete objectives, you’ll accrue points that can be put toward permanent upgrades to improve your dice, but sometimes you’ll still get a bad result when you try to do something.

That tension is what makes the game compelling. Since you’re often forced to pick from the best of bad options, it’s a relief when you catch a break. And as far as I can tell, there’s no way to reload past saves — I’m not ashamed to admit that I often wanted to — so when things go south, you’re stuck with the consequences of your decisions. That means you might muddle around and suffer for a while, but it forces you to get creative to dig yourself out of a hole.

Starward Vector is also good at keeping the pressure on. The game’s villain will be a few cycles behind you unless you frequently jump to new places, for example, and that forced me to efficiently explore different locations. I often visited new places before I felt fully prepared, but I knew that I needed to keep going, even if I was low on supplies, if I wanted to evade capture.

Despite how anxiety-inducing the game can be, it also does a lot to make things feel calm. You don’t have to make any real-time decisions, so you can take as long as you need to weigh every potential option. I spent multiple cycles and dice on various odd jobs just to raise a little cash for the trip to the next location. And as you go through the game, a chill, ambient soundtrack usually helps lower the temperature of whatever you’re doing.

The game also doesn’t overstay its welcome. I rolled credits in under 10 hours; just as I was starting to tire of the game’s loop (which happened in part because some of my hard-earned upgrades made things easier), the story reached what felt like a natural end. The stress and failed choices were worth the journey — maybe there’s something about real life to take away from that.

Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector launches on Nintendo Switch, PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X / S on January 31st.