The Indie Informer

“Because you are a broken thing, and you have nothing left but that brokenness, and the beauty that shines through it.” Two hundred and forty-three cycles after my desperate, amnesiac escape, I wait for it all to end. To end, and, hopefully, begin anew.

Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector is a masterwork.

Starting at the end seems fitting for this sequel, which is rife with musings on the nature of time — perhaps inspired directly by Citizen Sleeper 2’s place as the end of the franchise. At the title’s conclusion, I, the player, become the Sleeper — the game’s humanly hero — brilliantly. Turning off the game after the credits roll is like putting myself in suspended animation with the looming possibility of a new adventure.

If I’m not too afraid to succumb to hope, I myself can mimic the protagonist’s journey. Injecting real life with a game’s reality, influencing me to experience the character’s doubts as I decide whether to start over from scratch or hold on to my lived memories, is a gift few developers can give.

As for the journey itself, Citizen Sleeper 2 is a tabletop role-playing game made virtual. Six-sided dice control my success or failure for almost every action. This includes everything from discovering where in town to buy supplies to whether I earn a day’s wage or even whether I can navigate danger unscathed.

Every scenario plays out via the most skillfully and subtly woven descriptions draping embellishments across the screen. The text conjures the smallest details of a gesture and the vastness of the cosmic landscape in my mind without needing to picture it on screen. The writing, simply put, is phenomenal.

Successfully punching my way through a tough spot or gliding out of peril on the tip of my silver tongue depends on my stats, and, more broadly, which class I picked at the beginning of the game. An operator’s skill, for example, is tailored for interfacing but has absolutely no aptitude for endurance. This can be a problem when I face an obstacle that demands brute strength and leaves me at the mercy of the dice.

But even in the best circumstances, things can always go bad. Unlike the previous title, Citizen Sleeper 2 encourages me to gather a rag-tag crew on my spaceship, which I can bring out with me on various celestial missions. So, I quickly move to recruit a character with a little brawn. It seems like my problems are solved after that, but the game throws another curveball at me: Stress.

Stress accrues out in the vast reaches of space when skill checks go awry. When my crew members get overwhelmed, they dip out of the mission, dramatically cutting down my chance at success. With each stress level I gained, I increased the chance that one of my five D6s would break — that’s right, completely shatter and become useless for the foreseeable future. I might also find myself glitch-infested, transforming one of my dice. After glitching, that die would only have a twenty percent chance of success no matter what. You have to be desperate to use them, and I definitely got desperate before the end.

With these new elements, the sequel offers more movement, strategy, connection, and risk. Committing to a course, contending with corroded edges and struggling to survive, is exhilarating. Failure is unavoidable, but reality’s harshness makes the moments of empathy and humanity glimmer brighter.

Mechanically, the game is great at spurring pressure, inducing movement, and prompting carefulness. The clock is always ticking. I’m constantly being hunted, and staying on one planet too long ensures capture. There never seems to be enough fuel, cyro (currency), or supplies to flee comfortably. It doesn’t help that every locale harbors people in need, tempting opportunities, and waylaying plot points. However, the tension is doled out in meticulously measured doses. Whatever the outcome, it’s never so harsh that I want to quit.

Sometimes – most times – things simply don’t work out the way I anticipated and there are very few easy choices. Everything involves strings, compromises, and uncertainties. But choosing to do the best with what I have feels more like a badge of honor than a failing. Succeeding feels like a triumph.

Citizen Sleeper 2 is phenomenal, evocative, and haunting. The minimal visuals are flawlessly supported by the writing. Gut-wrenching expressions and touchingly lonely scenes flow out of the masterful descriptions. The audio design had me rocketing from dawning dread to heart-pumping motivation. And in the end, I was forced into the hero’s dilemma in a way that cemented this game as one of the year’s best.