Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector Review (PS5) – Into The Expanse

Any second time around is synonymous with raising the stakes. Whether that’s the scope, ambition, ideas that didn’t make it through the first time coming to fruition, or even expectations being met that are outside of your control. It’s no surprise then that Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector is a flurry of all those factors. A more expansive story across a whole solar system, an extension of a pre-existing dice roll gameplay loop seen in the first game, on top of an audience expectation after the first instalment was so well received.

And I have to admit, I am said audience. Before playing Citizen Sleeper, I was someone who wasn’t sure how long my attention would hold reading its novel-like delivery of the game’s narrative. However, Guillaume Singelin’s meticulous and vibrant illustrations for the game’s characters and Amos Roddy’s enveloping electronic soundtrack enticed me into playing what is now one of my favourite games.

In broad terms, Citizen Sleeper (and its sequel) is a digitized tabletop RPG set in a dystopian solar system that sees you reading through its campaign, making decisions that alter your course, and rolling dice to let it decide how successful you are in said decisions. It was a great foundation that saw you managing your output and intake of various resources, taking formidable risks on low-scoring dice just so you could survive the next cycle (day) and trying to escape the company that created you in the first place.

Wake Up, Sleeper

But what had reduced me to a pile of emotions wasn’t the game’s well-crafted systems of all sorts but rather Jump Over the Age’s ability to write their characters. There is a distinct tenderness that cuts through the oppressive setting, like a skeleton key unlocking everyone’s drive to live, understand, co-exist. You may grow a familial bond or a lifelong enemy but either way, there’s empathy. So what does that mean for Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector, a comprehensive sequel? Do the stars shine just as bright for this sci-fi epic? I won’t leave it up to the dice to tell you.

You are again a Sleeper, a human consciousness operating an android body built by the Essen-Arp to work. However, your work isn’t with them anymore but a tyrannical gang leader named Laine. Imprisoned in a city built upon a ship for labour, you and your friend, Serafin, devise a plan to escape Laine’s clutches. This acts as a tutorial for the player as you pick between three separate Sleepers that come with a pre-determined skill tree.

Each skill tree consists of Engineer, Interface, Endure, Intuit and Engage – personality traits with a machina spin to them. From the lineup of Sleepers to choose from, all of them are more proficient than their respective fields, all of which are missing one entirely through the whole playthrough. I picked Operator which meant I was devoid of ‘Endure’ but proficient in ‘Interface’, essentially meaning I’m good with computers but bad in situations that are physically taxing.

Not Leaving It Up To Chance

This is all important because every moment that requires a dice roll, like working the docks for the game’s currency (chits/cryo) or hacking into a computer will have a trait assigned to the action. These actions may be safe, risky or dangerous which indicates the severity of the penalty you incur if you get a negative dice roll. This plays a bigger factor during contracts but more on that later.

You’ll use the D-pad for the most part to sift through the actions highlighted on the HUD, it’d be more arduous if there was more on screen but Jump Over the Age has made a conscious effort to keep the HUD minimal and tactile. There’s never too much on screen that it becomes a headache to navigate – which I’ve always appreciated the series for.

Escaping Laine is the first step to freedom for your Sleeper and Serafin. You travel through different settlements across the solar system meeting potential crew members for your ship. Every area has a distinct terroir that Jump Over the Age consistently revels in succinctly detailing. Citizen Sleeper is a world full of post-collapse adapting – a melting pot of wires, drives, and archaic repurposed computers. It reads dingy but out of a necessity to be resourceful for everyone operating amongst the wrecks.

I love how Jump Over the Age writes. There’s a poetic cadence as to how they describe locales and the characters in them – all of which carry an array of personalities that obfuscates Jump Over the Age’s singular voice. As far away from reality as you may be in this desolate yet hopeful world, there’s so much humanity and introspection to latch onto your emotions.

Gaining The System

Seeing the far reaches of the stars isn’t free in Citizen Sleeper 2, as the game replaces the previously required use of Stabilizer (used to keep the Sleeper’s body from failing) to now managing your ship’s fuel and supplies. Fuel enables you to travel to the different settlements, while supplies keep you from starvation when you’re out on contract missions.

The game operates on cycles. Every time you rest back on your ship, some of your Sleeper’s energy is used and your handful of dice are re-rolled. Maintaining your energy makes for better probability on your dice and in turn could make your days go smoother. Contracts then, are designed to put your maintenance to the test as they are high-risk high-reward missions that you spend fuel on getting to and your ship’s supplies keep you fed – one supply is one cycle’s worth of food.

It’s a new and welcome addition to the series as it’s the most active aspect of Citizen Sleeper. Much like the rest of the game, you insert dice into an action that’s highlighted in a part of the diorama-like overview of the area. However, contracts also introduce a stress meter and glitches. Stress accrues if you have a neutral or bad outcome from a dice roll when performing a dangerous task or a negative outcome for a risky task. The more stress you have, the more likely your dice are to take damage, and if they take enough damage they’ll break – becoming unusable.

Feeling Dicey

These negative impacts on your Sleeper bring forth glitches which make your dice become a blanket 20% positive, 80% negative outcomes if you use them. All of these systems working in tandem deliver that infectious elation of defying the odds. You can also bring crew mates on these contracts, who will have a couple of the skill tree perks I listed, but also gain stress, and as a result, can become unusable. At one point I was on a contract to search for survivors amongst the remains of a destroyed ship. Debris was floating in space for a while before I got there and there was so much distance to cover.

Because you can only fix your dice when they’re broken and not upkeep them to full health before that, I had 4 of my 5 dice on its last legs. Tasks I needed to perform required skills I didn’t have, meaning -1 per roll. There was no waiting it out, I had to persevere or fail the contact. As a result of bad odds, I was out of supplies which added stress per cycle. My dice were dropping by the day and the tasks progress bar was still a way out.

I completed the contract in the end, nearly on my deathbed because of it but that challenge created a tension I’ve yet to see in the series. Citizen Sleeper 2 has so many aspects you need to juggle like stress, supplies, money and dice health that you never really feel safe; which is what I wish I could say about the story. Whilst the game is bigger by virtue of more characters, more locations, the introduction of contracts and the new negative outcomes of maintaining your Sleeper poorly, I’m missing the moments I loved from the first game.

The Weight Of The Worlds

Maybe I’ve grown wise to the characters Jump Over the Age writes, but they all seem a lot more straightforward this time around. I can tell who’s well-intentioned (which is most of them), I can read antagonistic characters from a mile off and I never felt betrayed by my dialogue options. There’s also a seemingly definitive trajectory and one ending that I guess you can get to in various ways, as opposed to the handful of paths you go down in the first game.

I felt less like I was in control of my life as a Sleeper and more pushed along with some variations in characters I kept in contact with along the way. To some, this will be an improvement – a more definitive and fleshed-out journey that we’ll collectively go on and enjoy, but I do miss those moments when I’d stumble down a path and slowly learn a character’s being through delightfully thought-provoking descriptions.

That’s not to say Citizen Sleeper 2 is not fun, it is. You just don’t have time to stop and have waves of world-building wash over you in the same capacity, you are on the run and constantly moving after all. There are, however, some unlikely characters from the past seen here, in varying degrees of significance. My delayed realisation of meeting someone I met back on The Eye in CS1 only bolstered how all-encompassing the world crafted here is.

I got to see the continuation of old friends, people I worked with or just scumbags I disdain knowing they’re still knocking about. It’s a nice touch, one that enhances your experience if you’ve played the first one by quite a bit.

Upstanding Citizen

Unsurprisingly, what drew me into the series in the first place – its art and soundtrack – is still top-notch here too. Guillaume Singelin’s character portraits appear more refined, exuberant in detail and more diverse in style. It seems as the world has expanded for the series, so too has the codex of motifs. This can be said for the music, whilst there is a fresh crop of soundscapes to be hypnotised by, there also themes previously heard that are altered and placed very tastefully.

Citizen Sleeper 2 took me around 12 hours to complete, almost doubling a single playthrough of the first game and yet I still found myself as glued to the game’s rhythm. Managing resources, adapting to the dice rolls, making sure to not stay in one place so Laine didn’t catch me, all the whilst trying to experience all the characters and avenues the writing has to offer.

I may miss the microscopic finesse I fell in love with on The Eye, but I embrace the wider picture at large. Jump Over the Age is crafting a universe in video games that’s hard to match and with the same poeticism in the writing, running simultaneously with more active game elements and systems to keep on top of, this is their biggest and boldest game to date.

Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector will release 31st January 2025 for PlayStation 5 (review platform), Xbox Series X|S Nintendo Switch and PC via Steam.

Developers: Jump Over the Age

Publisher: Fellow Traveller

Disclaimer: In order to complete this review, we were provided with a promotional copy of the game. For our full review policy, please go here.

If you enjoyed this article or any more of our content, please consider our Patreon.

Make sure to follow Finger Guns on our social channels. Twitter, Facebook, Twitch, Spotify or Apple Podcasts – to keep up to date on our news, reviews and features.