Paul RobertsJanuary 31, 2025Maxi Geek Review, Citizen Sleeper, Fellow Traveller, PC, PS5, XSX, SwitchComment

Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector - Review

Paul RobertsJanuary 31, 2025Maxi Geek Review, Citizen Sleeper, Fellow Traveller, PC, PS5, XSX, SwitchComment

Time has really snuck up on me. I could swear that Citizen Sleeper came out in 2024, maybe even 2023. It turns out that the original game came out in 2022 and like the main character of Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector, my memory isn’t what it used to be. Time displacement aside, the good news is it’s now 2025 and after nearly 3 years it’s time to revisit the world of ‘Sleepers’ and try to survive in a harsh universe.

As with the original Citizen Sleeper, you’re an artificial being known as a Sleeper. A marriage of a digitised human mind and robot body, used by corporations until they have no further use for them. Previously with the planned obsolescence built into the Sleepers, the only way to delay your inevitable decay was an expensive stabilizer.

Starward Vector starts off with you on the run, escaping the clutches of a dangerous individual. In the process of escaping your memory has been affected, leaving you with a touch of unfortunate amnesia. A disrupted reboot has helped to halt the decay process, removing the need for the ever needed and expensive stabiliser. However this raises a new issue, as your robot body glitches as part of the story’s mystery is seeking answers to what is happening to you. While your Sleeper no longer needs to struggle to obtain precious stabiliser, that doesn’t mean the sequel is taking the pressure off. Laine, the dangerous mob boss you escaped from, wants you back. With a friend called Serafin, someone you’ve forgotten as part of the reboot process, you’re both on the run.

With the original game there was a constant battle between not starving and holding off decay. While the threat of decay is no longer present, there is instead a time pressure with limited cycles/turns before Laine catches up with you. As the game opens up, you do get a bit more breathing room as long as you stay on the move.

It’s been a while since I played the original so it’s nice the tutorials cover the basics well, they also happen to be quick to pick up! It also turns out there’s new mechanics to learn too. At the start you select your class, which will help determine what actions you have gives the best chances of successful outcomes. Along with that there are also some actions that require a certain class that will disadvantage you if you take your chances.

Instead of the original game’s space station ‘The Eye’, the game truly expands across a region known as the Starward Belt. There are multiple stations/locations, colonies where the citizens are just trying to live out on the fringe of society, while the distant shadow of warring, unfeeling corporations still inescapable. The Rig is your base of operations. It’s where you sleep and eat, travel the region and get out to fulfil contracts and help the citizens of the belt. As you are no longer bound to one space station, you will need to work to keep the Rig running, whether it’s supplies so you don’t starve, fuel to get to the next destination and a crew to help make things happen.

Citizen Sleeper 2 plays similarly to the original game, a sci-fi tabletop RPG where your actions and progress through the game are dictated by dice rolls. Every day you have five of these dice to assign to different actions. With each dice randomised each cycle, it’s possible to have bad days/cycles. Some actions help progress the story, some help uncover more locations on your current station or might turn up some jobs to help get by a little longer.

Cryo is the currency of choice out in the belt. You will need to keep the Rig fueled and supplied, as well as keeping you fed. To do this you can do odd jobs around the station, sell scrap and such, or you can tackle a contract. Contracts are higher risk jobs that help you get by for a little bit longer. Whether it’s helping out someone, retrieving or repairing something, or just for some extra and much needed cash to achieve some of your main drives/tasks. When you take on contracts you enter a closed scenario, you can only use the supplies you bring with you. This gives you a rough deadline to complete the contract - once you’re out of food your crew starts to starve and everything starts getting dire quickly.

While your crew starts off as yourself and Serafin, the two of you against the universe, it’s not long before you start gathering members to help make your time out in the belt more manageable. Every crew member has their reasons for joining and not all intend to stay. Some come with their own goals, and some only available in certain areas. The game's writing always keeps the interactions interesting and keeps you wondering what some characters' motivations truly are. While crew can join for various reasons, it’s important to make sure you bring the best crew for the job. Each active crew on a contract brings their own action dice, tied to their classes. If you play your dice right you can ensure that your crews proficiencies cover for a variety of actions.

Stress is not only something that I feel when playing CS2, but it’s also a mechanic which is ever present as you appear to gain stress in several ways throughout. When tackling a contract you can build contract stress, when you have negative outcomes it adds to an overall meter. If you push your luck and the meter goes far enough you can activate a crisis event. Unsurprisingly, dealing with crisis events adds to your very real stress as you now have to tackle an urgent situation while your fast dwindling supplies get eaten up.

Along with the overall contract stress, there is also crew stress. When using individual crew dice/actions, negative outcomes add to their stress meter which can result in having them unavailable for at least the rest of the contract.

On top of all of that, your dice can take damage, which happens through stress. Negative outcomes can add to their stress/damage meters, with enough bad luck you can break the dice until it’s repaired. Losing a dice can be devastating to your progress in the game. It's one less roll you can make per day and requires resources to repair when there’s so much to do.

Glitch dice are another fun mechanic to keep you from getting complacent. These dice can show up and take up your precious dice slots. The glitch dice have an 80% chance of a failed outcome. They need to be used, so there’s the balancing act of finding the best time to clear them out knowing they could really limit your outcomes for the cycle.

The stress mechanics are just one of many additions to the sequel and written down it sounds like a lot, and initially it is. While the game has its share of mechanics based around stress, it also happens to be something I experience trying to survive my way through the universe. No doubt it’s intentional, with the eternal struggle of not starving and not decaying ever present in the original game. It’s nice not to have to worry about having to fork out for stabiliser, it doesn’t alleviate any of the pressures your Sleeper and crew are placed under. The more contracts and situations my crew found themselves in, the more I appreciated how game keeps you on your toes. Over a few hours I found that I had to not stress so much about…stress! I embraced going with the flow.

If you are wanting to focus more on the enjoyable story, you can alter the difficulty at any time with ‘Safe’, ‘Risky’ and ‘Dangerous’ settings. Safe removes the harsher penalties you experience on Risky, such as a permanent upon death. Dangerous ramps up the stress and you only have one life with permadeath. It did ease my mind knowing I could switch if I wanted to, and even if there is less risk you still get the pleasure of engaging with the game.

Sleeper Citizen 2 gives the people more of what they enjoyed the first time around and successfully builds on it. I can easily recommend this for fans of the original (if you even needed to know to get this game) and If you’ve never played the original you can easily jump in here (although you should really go play the first game too). Developer Jump Over The Age have made another great entry in the Citizen Sleeper universe, it is well worth the journey.