Citizen Sleeper Review – Outstanding Narrative RPG

Citizen Sleeper is a narrative RPG developed by Jump Over the Age and published by Fellow Traveller, and the game released on PC, Nintendo Switch and Xbox on May 5, 2022. Do not let narrative RPG turn you off as, while yes there is a lot to read, this game is fantastic. The writing is incredibly rich, the visuals are eye catching and characters detailed, and the music made the experience for me. After my first play session, I had already downloaded the game’s soundtrack on Spotify, it’s that good.

You are a sleeper, a digitised human consciousness in an artificial body, owned by a corporation that wants you back. The game is set on Erlin’s Eye, a ruined space station that is home to thousands of people trying to survive on the edges of an interstellar capitalist society. You need to build friendships, earn your keep, and navigate the factions of this strange metropolis, if you hope to survive to see the next cycle.

Some people may get turned off by the first sequence of the game consisting of reading a heap of text – not me. I love reading, but being a gamer and a game reviewer, gaming has taken preference the past couple of years. So, for me, this is the best of both worlds as I am reading an intriguing and rich story, while also playing out actions almost like a choose your own adventure book. The background music instantly puts me in the right frame of mind and playing this game was an absolute pleasure.

Your character’s artificial body is breaking down and needs pharmaceutical meds to keep it going. Your condition depletes by one segment each cycle and can also be damaged by violence, such as being shot, or by lack of food. If your condition bar empties, you will suffer a breakdown. You need to work out quickly how to get access to those meds, and that’s through progressing the story.

While your body is an artificial one, it still needs nutrients to survive. Initially you can use a dice roll to gain food, but that is one less action you can do on the station for quests. Later, you meet people in a bar or restaurant and can purchase food for credits you have earned, but you also need credits to buy things such as your meds, bribe someone, or to earn favour with a faction. My first playthrough lasted about 6 hours, though there were still heaps of things left unfinished and many branching paths in the story along the way.

Gameplay is inspired by tabletop roleplaying games and as such, you have turns called cycles, and up to six dice to use in each cycle, depending on the condition of your artificial body. Every action in Citizen Sleeper costs dice, credits, or an item, and dice rolls can result in positive, negative, or neutral outcomes, and can progress or lose progress in the main story or side quests.

I’m a father of two daughters, so when I got to a point in the story where I met a working father struggling to make ends meet for his daughter, it’s a storyline I stuck with for my first play through. Side quests along the way were good distractions and a means to gain items and to side with other factions to gain certain access and privileges to help this family.

Ultimately, it’s how I was able to get off the station, but there were heaps of tasks still left to do at that point in the story. I also could have chosen not to help them at all and there were lots of other options for the story to unfold, which makes me want to jump straight back in and make different choices.

I am also super excited for the recent announcement from Fellow Traveller that Citizen Sleeper will be receiving new story content via three free episodic updates. The first DLC is titled “FLUX” and arrives in July (date TBC). Episodes 2 and 3 are currently planned for release in October and early 2023 respectively, however dates are still to be confirmed.

Overall, Citizen Sleeper is the perfect blend of visual novel and simple RPG gameplay with a story that’s rich and compelling. Like a good novel, I couldn’t put it down, thinking about the game while at work and looking forward to jumping back in each night. With branching storylines that encourage further play throughs, this is one of the better games I have played this year.

This review utilised a key provided by Double Jump Communications and Citizen Sleeper is available now on Steam, Nintendo Switch and Xbox.

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