Citizen Sleeper review: a subversive sci-fi RPG with tabletop freedom

Partway through Citizen SleeperRealizing this, I realized that I am the only thing on this space station with any real family is trapped in an old vending machine. Although Neovend 33 may be a cranky little creature, it is not unreasonable to believe that. The AI has been dormant, gathering dust in a locked bay, hoping that someone like me — a dysfunctional Sleeper barely holding it together — would come along to help. Long after I bid Neovend farewell, it stays planted in my head like a seed, and I’m alone in facing the impracticalities of my own existence. Neovend leaves me with little to do other than exist after the game is over.

Citizen Sleeper is the new narrative-driven, text-heavy role-playing game from Jump Over the Age (aka Gareth Damian Martin, the creator of 2020’s Other WatersThe dice system is based on tabletop gaming and it’s used in the game. The player controls a Sleeper — an emulated “person” fleeing from the Essen-Arp megacorp in a proprietary body frame designed for “planned obsolescence.” It’s not far off from consumer tech now — hardware purposefully designed to wither in the face of endless updates and opaque new operating systems (or in the case of bionic eye company Second Sight, hardware that bricks itself in the face of bankruptcy). The frames provide a safe haven for escapees such as me to avoid them getting too far away before someone can bring me back. It is possible, though, to partially repair the Sleeper’s body, which is more than can be said for many electronics today.

Citizen Sleeper, drawing from the tabletop’s inspirations has three classes. One of my traits is the structured, meticulous Machinist. He excels in engineering-type work. I chose this one because it was closest to what I have seen. I awaken, filled with anxiety, on Erlin’s Eye (or simply “the Eye”), a decaying space station. My frame is in need of repair, and after meeting junk salvager Dragos, it becomes clear that I need to earn some “cryo,” a cryptocurrency that’s been isolated from the market. Capitalism seems like an inexorable bitch. But I soon discover that, even when faced with very difficult decisions, the game still allows the sleeper to keep a gentle, haunting feeling of humanity through dialogues and actions. These fleeting moments of brutality and violence offer me vulnerability and leave me with mixed feelings of regret and sadness. One subplot, involving a hired goon named Ethan, is grimly moving, and at the end of his story, I dwell on the ugly minutiae of humanity in a universe where individual lives don’t seem to matter.

Grid View

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  Machinists
  
  
  Image: Jump over the Age/Fellow Traveller
  

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  The extractor class
  
  
  Image: Jump over the Age/Fellow Traveller
  

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  Operator class
  
  
  Image: Jump over the Age/Fellow Traveller
  

To build narrative immersion momentum, it takes several cycles. I also need to gain some confidence with the Eye. “Cycles” are the increments of time that move the game forward (they’re basically working days). Every cycle involves managing my health (my body’s condition), my dice roll (the actions that I am able to perform) and my food bar (my nutrition situation). My condition will affect how many dice I can use. With each new character I meet, or area I explore, the game unlocks a new “drive,” or broad objectives to pursue — like joining a commune or finding a way to remove the Essen-Arp tracker from my traitorous frame. Citizen Sleeper’s fundamental idea is that you can survive, and then use your drives to satisfy your own needs. This could be learning about your past or planning for the future.

The early tutorial cycles aren’t complicated if you’re familiar with turn-based tabletop RPGs that run on dice. I still struggle to find my rhythm. When I reach cycles 30-40, I have a single, focused feeling as I walk into the Greenway to forage fragile mushrooms. Delivering noodles and unloading cargo is what I do. Scraps are used to fix little bits of my body.

All of these small tasks serve greater objectives — particularly the drives to help others — and they fill narrative lulls and waiting periods with a sense of purpose, even if it is just busywork. I stubbornly spend at least 3 cryo a day feeding a stray cat, in the hopes that maybe the game will eventually cave and allow me to have a pet (it doesn’t).

Image by Jump Over the Age/Fellow traveller

Each cycle brings me closer to the Eye, allowing me to learn more about its bureaucracies and sojourning merchants. After an event known as the “collapse,” the station became a lodestar for misfits and fugitives, a refuge for casualties of industrial greed, and a hideaway for restless AIs. There’s Emphis, a street food vendor whose body is marked with the telltale signs of corporate biotech; there’s also Sabine, an enigmatic doctor with suspicious motives. Feng is a hacker who was born on the Eye and determined to rid his house of any corporate history. He’s one of my favourite NPCs. It’s clear that Sleepers like me are a rare sight here, though, and the practical realities of living in this lawless place mean that many people view the Sleeper’s valuable body as a means to an end. Except me, everyone on the Eye is aware of their place in the universe.

One thing that threw me off is that the credits play after every “proper” ending, and then I’m returned to where I left off, free to work on any remaining drives or just putter around the Eye. (I was a little confused the first time it happened, but continued playing — I’d passed up a chance to leave my body for good. This was not by accident. It was a test of my will to feel truly free. Finally I’m done with all of the drives. At this point I’ve amassed enough resources to keep my body going for 40 or 50 cycles — if I keep doing my chores, I can exist as long as I want to. My cup is full of cryo, the panic and despair that I felt in my early cycles have long passed. Nothing is left for me.

My spontaneous decision to stick around on the Eye, long after I’ve exhausted all my drives and lingering curiosities, threw me for a loop. I rejected all of the game’s proffered endings in favor of a self-induced limbo, which forced me to confront my expectations of clean, neat closure; I’m not sure how it’ll all resonate with someone who chose a more finite way to wrap things up.

Image by Jump Over the Age/Fellow traveller

But the game’s greatest strength (and also its most infuriating choice) is to untether me from concrete objectives and let me exist without a reason. Continue to play with the cat and go through cycle after cycle. Tavla For cryo and to help at the local pub. It seems that I was expecting an unexpected endgame surprise. Without a drive, what am I to do? Why are you even here? It’s almost trollish, but I realize I have no reason to expect more. The abruptness of the “ending,” or rather the vague flexibility around my particular end, is bewildering, but I respected it as a sort of passive-aggressive drag.

My Sleeper is left in the Greenway when I have decided to quit the game. I can imagine them continuing their private, quiet lives. I’m not sure I’ll come back to the Eye again, because even if I make different decisions on another run, Citizen Sleeper’s most potent power lies in that first playthrough, when you arrive with nothing, and know even less. This isn’t so much about “replay value” as it is about the singular experience of a journey that — in keeping with the fiction of being a ragged Sleeper trying to survive — is very much a one-way street. What did I do for my Sleeper, and what could it have been? I don’t know. All things have to come to an end. I believe they will understand.

Citizen Sleeper The game will release on Windows PC and Mac on May 5, on Xbox One, Xbox Series X, Xbox One, Xbox One, Xbox 360, Nintendo Switch, and Mac. Jump Over the Age provided a code for the pre-release of the game. Vox Media also has affiliate relationships. Although these partnerships do not impact editorial content, Vox Media could earn commissions from products bought via the affiliate links. Find out more. additional information about Polygon’s ethics policy here.