Citizen Sleeper Is An RPG On Xbox Game Pass That Deserves Your Attention

Last night I didn’t know what Citizen Sleeper was when I started it up. I had seen some buzz about it online and figured I’d give it a go – it was on Xbox Game Pass, after all, and the key art looked precisely the slick and punchy cyberpunk/sci-fi aesthetic I especially like. Little did I know, a few hours later, I’d be playing a game that I’d recommend to anyone at this point. 

Now, I’m about four hours in, and there’s the potential to crash and burn, but something tells me it’s not going to. Citizen Sleeper, as a game, is somewhat hard to explain: It’s a sci-fi, narrative RPG with no combat (at least so far), a dice-rolling mechanic that dictates everything, minor survival systems, and a rotating cast of characters that you’ll immediately want more of upon meeting them. The game takes place in a space station/sci fi metropolis. It is viewed from an almost god-like zoom. 

All of that doesn’t add up to what you see in your mind. That’s what I went through when I read the description of it on Game Pass, and the curious confusion you’re (hopefully) feeling is what I was feeling after reading various tweets calling Citizen Sleeper a great game. Let me just tell you about Citizen Sleeper. It almost sent me into an existential spiral, and it immediately caught my attention. In what felt like moments, 7 p.m. became 11 p.m. last night, and I grouchily put myself to bed, desperate to play more, because I’m a responsible adult sometimes. 

You are a Sleeper, a digitized consciousness implanted into an artificial body – basically a robot with someone else’s mind. This someone is you. The real you sold their consciousness to a mega-corporation (we’re talking a Blade RunnerCyberpunk corporation (here) in order to allow them to use the body in artificial form for their purposes. However, you’ve escaped, and now the suits want you back. That escape scenario is fine, and it sets up the stakes of Citizen Sleeper quite well, but the idea that you are a copy of your real self, who sold you to work for a mega-corp, is a concept I can’t get out of my head. 

Imagine yourself waking up cold, empty of life and with only a fragment of the person you think you are. Except you don’t know what a human should be; you only have an idea about the experience. Instead, you’re a robot possessing memories that feel like yours, but you know aren’t yours at all. You contain the feelings and sensations of the human body and mind that gave you away. By design, you’re forced to despise the real you. What could possibly go wrong? What made you do it? What would you think about artificial bodies with copies of your conscious? Or are you happy to pounce on your mind in order to make a quick buck. These are the questions Citizen Sleeper has racking around in my brain, and it’s what drives the narrative of this tabletop RPG-turned-video game. 

The game unfolds over cycles aboard Erlin’s Eye, the circular space station I mentioned earlier. As a Sleeper, your body is constantly deteriorating, and it’s supposed to – the corporation that owns you built that drawback to keep you coming back to them because only they sell what you need to restore your health. The worse your artificial body’s status, the worse dice you’re dealt at the start of each cycle. These dice dictate everything – to do almost any action, you roll a dice. The outcome is either positive (with effects such as filling and completing an objective bar), neutral (perhaps nothing happens), or negative (maybe you lose energy). Higher chances are for a positive roll with better dice. However, more frequently, you will see negative outcomes. 

Let me run you through what a cycle might look like to help you better grasp this: Your condition is good this morning, so you wake up with two really good dice, one average dice, and two not-so-great dice. To ensure your condition is solid tomorrow, you need to complete a task on the station that gets you more of the game’s currency. You roll an average-level dice because you don’t need a lot of money – just a decent amount. You get the money you need, so you head to the station’s doctor to restore your health. Then you move to the next goal. This is how you help someone repair a ship. While rolling positively helps the ship’s repair, it can also be negatively pushed further away from the edge. Hence, it’s crucial to roll positively or at least neutral. Use one of the best dice you have to ensure positive results. Yay!

You then notice your energy is running low – if it depletes, you begin starving, which weakens your condition or health. You decide to go to a food stand to replenish your energy. You use your remaining dice on other objectives, and when you’ve depleted all your dice, there’s nothing left for you to do. So you return to your “home” and end the cycle. You wake up and do it repeatedly, with different dice, objective progression goals, and different people to meet and interact with. 

It’s a mechanic that makes more sense after playing it a bit, and I highly recommend not sweating over it. It will all work out if you just play it. And when it does, you’ll be rewarded with a fascinating narrative that effectively accentuates the stress of simply trying to survive within the confines of space capitalism, the idea of self-ownership, and the concept of making a new life out of the hand you’ve been dealt, no matter how useless it might feel. 

I’m not exactly sure where Citizen Sleeper is going, but I’m fascinated by its premise and gameplay design. It features beautiful art and what I’d call this year’s best soundtrack, too, so playing it is an especially great time. If none of this has convinced you to give it a try – mind you, it’s also on Xbox Game Pass, so if you’re already a subscriber, checking it out will only cost you your time – I’d still say give it a shot. On paper, I would not have said Citizen Sleeper would be a Wesley game, but after four hours with it, it’s all I want to play.

Citizen Sleeper is now available for Xbox Series X/S (and Switch) and PC. 

Do you remember Citizen Sleeper from your childhood? Comment below to let us know your thoughts!