Citizen Sleeper Episode One: Flux review

It’s possible to love someone you care about. Citizen Sleeper, the text-heavy sci-fi RPG, then the game’s new free DLC, Episode One: Flux, will be a welcome addition; it adds tough new story decisions while also deepening the well of wonderful world-building and vivid characters. But it’s also a great excuse to start this melancholic game for the first time — it left an impression on me and is still one of the best releases of the year.

Citizen Sleeper, you role-play as a Sleeper, a character who’s not quite human and not quite machine, but entirely owned by the megacorp Essen-Arp. Your body is designed with “planned obsolescence,” and you must take a proprietary kind of medicine to stay alive. The game unfolds across Erlin’s Eye, a ramshackle space station that’s the victim of late-late-stage capitalism. The station has been abandoned, and a number of the remaining people on it have organized across political factions — others simply attempt to live another day or find a way out. It is possible to build a successful life with these fellow citizens. To fight the next day, you must work and find ways to pay for your medication.

Flux Update starts in Greenway. It is an area mid-to-late game that is less densely packed and a great place to store new storylines. The DLC adds an additional variable to the game: Refugees living in a flotilla seeking a place on The Eye but who are stuck in limbo by station bureaucracy. It’s a sharp addition that changed the way I approached my entire playthrough — far from feeling appended, Flux wove itself naturally into the existing tapestry of gameplay. It forces you to consider how to influence The Eye to support an influx in human life. This is a disturbing paradigm shift. The Eye could support them.

Image: Jump over the Age/Fellow Traveller

First, there’s the matter of helping the refugees find asylum at all. Just like all other things Citizen Sleeper’s quests, Flux is about competing interests and snarled outcomes. You’ll meet a handful of new characters: Eshe, captain of the Climbing Briar, and Peake, a member of the ship’s crew. These two men hail from Hawthorn station, which also has problems because of corporate ownership. In these power struggle, the refugee needs are easily forgotten. I made a decision to not abandon these people, no matter how bureaucratic the hurdles.

In this way, this chapter of the new quest shifted my priorities toward investing in the station’s long-term viability. In my previous playthrough, I played as an Operator, mostly hacking away at the station’s digital infrastructure. Instead of researching Greenway projects that would benefit the most people, I was focused more on making new friends and staying with them. Flux, as a Machinist with a modified mid-game save file provided by Jump Over the Age allowed me the freedom to explore a different play style and navigate a new set constraints. Instead of focusing on those I have made connections, I began to shape my playstyle to try to make more choices in the interest of station sustainability.

Citizen SleeperIt is not uncommon for players to have to make difficult decisions. It is not easy to choose between the jobs you want, which factions or who you should help. This is made more urgent by the game’s central mechanics — every morning you awaken with a limited number of dice rolls, and you have to spend them wisely. Can you rescue a father and daughter who have adopted each other from The Eye? Do you hack into the station’s underbelly, or help a botanist understand why mushrooms thrive here?

Image: Jump over the Age/Fellow Traveller

Like each of the base game’s excellent quest lines, Flux reframed the way I approached my time as a Sleeper, and it once again revolved around that looming question of staying or leaving. This isn’t a spoiler. This is not a spoiler. And as you go about the day-to-day on The Eye, you’ll participate in the station’s many power struggles, and find new ways of organizing. Flux added additional depth to the game, effectively reframing the final choices I’d made during my first playthrough.

It ends with a surprise. Because this is the first of three episodic updates, we’ll have to wait until October to know where the story goes before it wraps up with episode three in 2023. With excitement mixed with agita, I am eagerly awaiting the next episode. But I’m happy to have more excuses to revisit one of my favorite games of the year — especially if new storylines continue to reframe it all.

Citizen Sleeper Episode One: Flux The DLC will be available on Windows PC and Mac on July 28, as well as Xbox One, Xbox Series X, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Xbox One, Xbox Series X and Xbox One. Jump Over the Age provided a code for the pre-release of the DLC. Vox Media is an affiliate partner. Although these partnerships do not impact editorial content, Vox Media could earn commissions for products sold via affiliate links. Here are some links to help you find. additional information about Polygon’s ethics policy here.