Citizen Sleeper 2: Wayward Vector

So far this year I’ve reviewed one new game release. The rest have either been games I missed in the past, or series I’ve been meaning to catch up on. Let’s change that shall we. This summer I’d like to spend more time covering new game releases and indie games, because my fall semester this year is going to be really busy and I’m not sure I’ll have any time to write reviews or try out any new games. For my second review of a 2025 release, let's talk about a game that made me a bit sad, because what’s not fun about tears? Citizen Sleeper 2: Wayward Vector, the sequel to the highly praised Citizen Sleeper and developed by indie studio Jump Over The Edge. Published by Fellow Traveller who also helped with the release of 1000xResist. Oh look, two in a row. What do I mean by this? You'll be pleased to hear that Citizen Sleeper 2 was surprisingly better than I’d expected and as of right now it contains my favorite narrative of 2025. Might as well be one of the most thought provoking games I’ve touched since Disco Elysium. Another masterfully titled Citizen Sleeper often gets compared to. Both are heavily narrative driven with light RPG mechanics and utilize dice rolls to determine character actions and skill checks. I was skeptical when Citizen Sleeper 2 got revealed a year or so ago. Not because I thought the game was going to be bad. It just felt like the sequel was coming out too soon seeing how sequels to well praised video games nowadays take a lengthy amount of time to produce.

Where do you go when numerous people praise the formula you have made. When there’s little to no room for improvement? Fear  of adding something that taints the experience. Fear to follow up a story that ended off on a good note. Fear of the criticism that not much has changed. That a sequel was unwarranted and your efforts to produce more of what you're proud of leads to hate or backlash. The answer to these questions is to simply not care. Recently a post blew up about the current state of indie gaming. We’re still getting piles of innovative ideas, but occasionally you have the developers who want to make sequels. Refine what they’ve made and expand. The post criticized these actions saying why not make  new games? Why stick to what you’ve already made before. I understand this sentiment. Companies nowadays like to stick with properties large margins of gamers are familiar with. To rephrase, they’re afraid new ideas may not perform as well as what succeeded before. That’s why sequels, remakes, or spin offs within popular or long running series are more likely to get approved than new creative ideas. However, while I resent the massive influx of remakes in recent memory I don’t see anything wrong making sequels.

The developers may not be innovating in a sense they change a genre, but they’re still growing and changing what has and can be done. I’d rather see sequels instead of remakes, because they show even with old and familiar ideas there’s still room for something new. A good example of an old idea still managing to be refreshing is Baldur’s Gate 3. There have been tons of CRPGs over the last few years, and Baldur’s Gate 3 is the third entry to a series Bioware was once herald for. It’s a niche game bringing a dead franchise back to life, but it was well done and respectful that it set a new high for the CRPGs genre. It became the gold standard for how these types of games should be, and no CRPG since then has come close to reaching the high level of CRPG goodness Baldur’s Gate 3 had on offer. Then you have Alan Wake 2. A technically impressive game that pushed the boundaries for how games could artistically express themselves. It may not have done anything impressive in terms of survival horror design, but it was still very well made with mechanically interesting moments that justified the simplistic gameplay.

I believe there is nothing wrong with making sequels despite being someone who prefers seeing fresh new ideas, and this especially applies to indie games. My skepticism with Citizen Sleeper 2 came not from it being a sequel, but how soon it was coming. The first game still feels frequent despite being released almost three years ago. I’ve never seen an indie game sequel come out this soon aside from Forgive Me Father 2 and The Rise of The Golden Idol. I was afraid that the developers didn’t let the first game settle down enough. That trying to follow high praise as soon as possible would taint both games’ reputation rather than help them. In the end I stayed hopeful for what Citizen Sleeper 2 could be, and what it ended up being was something unexpected. This is one of my favorite games of 2025. Not just an improvement in terms of the first game’s design, but a beautifully written narrative about living, suffering, perseverance, and death. An emotionally moving narrative I’ll think about for years to come, and I’ll be shocked if any of the other games I play this year push it off my top five. This review will contain slight spoilers for the first few hours as well as suggest what happens during the ending. Please play this game if you haven’t and if you get it on Steam leave a good review. It’s shocking neither of these games have an overwhelmingly positive score considering how well done they both are. Today we will be talking about why I love Citizen Sleeper 2 and why it absolutely deserves your attention.

Story

You awaken within a rundown shop. You’re heading hanging from countless nights without any sleep or nourishment. Eyes burning from the balring lights in the alleyways. Struggling to even pick yourself up from the ground. Yet you do so, not because you wanted to but a strange figure stands before you. With sleek white hair, a stainless suit, and a crooked smile. He leans down on the ground. Claiming who you are and that you belong to him. You’re a Sleeper. A humanoid android based on past life experience with the sole purpose of serving your human masters for eternity. With no voice, no freedom, or ability to cry in pain. An endured servant for the rest of your life, but it doesn’t have to be this way. The suited man, Laine, attempts to bring you back. To where you once belonged, but another figure enters the room. Pushing the man, knocking him out for a short period of time, and helping you escape from the confines of the area. Spending the next few days to locate a ship that’ll allow you to escape the colony you’re trapped on. Moment of peace. Moment of freedom. A few moments before Laine comes to rope you by the neck.

The man who saved you is named Serafin. A criminal who’s always on the run from the higher corporations which rule The Belt, a series of colonies working together to survive the harshness of space. Serafin knows what it’s like to be mistreated. To be looked down upon for what you try to stand for. To be seen as unlawful by men with more unlawful morals. He saw the situation we were in and wanted to help. So he did, but the rig you two stole is under poor maintenance and needs a crew to function properly. Over time you recruit new members, and slowly you form a ragtag group of travelers. Taking on odd jobs to obtain the cryo/money needed to keep you guys fed and running away from the constant pursuit of Laine. Early on though you realize something is wrong. Your body isn’t the same as when you woke up. Performing actions gets harder each passing day and you’re not sure if you can contain the pain. Visiting a doctor reveals you have a strange disease compared to most Sleepers. Something that is rearranging your insides, and the only way to cure yourself of this is a full reboot. A procedure that may erase any and all of the memories you have currently, and an uncertainty of if it’ll kill you. So not only are you stressed from having to constantly, but the fear of when your body will give out. When your time finally runs dry. Better make the most of it, Sleeper. Live the little life you just started out with.

Gameplay

When it comes to the Citizen Sleeper games trying to describe how they work is kinda difficult, even though actually playing the game is simple. Citizen Sleeper is one of the more unique RPGs I’ve touched alongside Disco Elysium, because they're the only RPGs I know where everything is determined through dialogue and dice rolls. Where there’s no combat, and you carefully read what is going on because the next thing you may matter by large margins. Citizen Sleep isn’t like Disco Elysium though where your character has a controllable body which you use to navigate the complex intertwining world. There is a world to explore in Citizen Sleeper 2, but a majority of what you’ll be interacting with is icons and texts. Citizen Sleeper is a mixture between a good chunk of visual novel games, and the Persona games or the recent Metaphor ReFantazio. You go about each day choosing what actions you’d like to take. Participating in side quests, helping the locals, and working jobs to earn cryo. Cryo is basically cash and you need to purchase resources for your ship, meals to keep you energized, and sometimes scrap to forge certain needs. Aside from spending cryo, most of these actions are done through the usage of your dice.

At the start of each day, otherwise ‘cycles’ in Citizen Sleeper, you are given five dice. They are six sided dice able to roll a number between one and six. The number of your dice will determine the outcome of an action you spend them on. A dice numbered either one or two will give a fifty fifty chance of getting a negative outcome or neutral. Three and four will give  twenty percent negative, fifty percent neutral, and twenty percent positive. Five gives you fifty fifty for neutral or positive, and a six guarantees you’ll get a one hundred percent positive outcome. The positive outcomes are often the best. Granted unique bonuses or allowing progression in side tasks or side quests to be quicker. Negative outcomes can be terrible as they may make certain situations in the game worse, inflict hunger, or inflict stress. Hunger is managed with food, but stress is a new feature in Citizen Sleeper 2. If stress goes up all the way they will increase the rate for which the dice break. The first Citizen Sleeper had a decay system. Dice would become unusable the higher the decay went up, and you needed an expensive medicine to treat it. Citizen Sleeper 2 functions differently considering your Sleeper this time around has a unique health problem. Your dice can break after enough strain and when they break they naturally roll ones. You need to use a specific kind of scrap or component to repair these dice, because you don’t want to use tools that give you a higher chance of failing a situation. Another unique feature is glitch. Randomly the glitch bar will fill up. The higher it is the more your dice become glitched. Giving you an eight percent chance of failing, but a twenty percent chance for a positive outcome. High risk, high reward and the only way to remove glitch is to move onto the next day/cycle. Play your cards carefully.

Perform tasks, help the locals, and complete quests. Each quest gives your skill points and they can be spent to unlock new skills and level up your five stats. However, you’ll be limited down to four depending on which of the three classes you start the game with. Another new addition to Citizen Sleeper 2 are the contracts. Quests that require you to fly out to certain spots to perform a job within a specific window of time. You’ll be traveling a lot in Citizen Sleeper 2. There’s many colonies to travel and doing so uses fuel. The contract's spot requires fuel to travel to as well, but you’ll also have to consider supplies. Run out of supplies and you'll start taking on stress. These contracts aren’t done entirely by yourself though. As you progress further into the main story you will unlock different crew members. Two can be selected for each mission, and some missions will give you one important to the plot. Each crew member specializes in certain fields, and can perform two actions per cycle. Essentially give you nine dice per cycle. If their stress fills up to the max during a contract they’ll become unavailable to use until you complete or fail the main objective. Again, play your cards carefully. Hopefully you can stay on the run, live out your life amongst the stars, and figure out what to do once this is finally over.

Thoughts

Citizen Sleeper 2: Wayward Vector is hopeful, sad, and beautiful all at the same time. As of right now it is and probably will end up being my favorite narrative of 2025 once the year is over. It’s not perfect, but flaws were bound to arise when specializing in what it did best. Recently a video by Razbuten talked about how the best video games are kind of bad. That if you are to pick apart each component you are bound to find pieces or moments frustrating or simply don’t like. There is no such thing as a perfect video game, but that isn’t to say there isn’t charm to be found. You can still call an experience incredible despite its flaws, because what it tried to do was really fun or what it said emotionally resonated with you. Neither Octopath Traveler games are perfect, but I gave both 10/10 scores for the amount of fun I said and what they meant to me. This is another one of these occasions. Where some aspects of the overall experience don’t perfectly stand, but you can’t help but appreciate what it tries to do. Citizen Sleeper 2 above all else is a masterpiece, and while not everyone will gell with how it plays I think it’s unique and is worth checking no matter what. The core gameplay loop and mechanics are still extraordinary, and what was added makes it feel more like the grand RPG the original wanted to be. Weirdly, it reminds me of the Octopath Traveler games. Both are mechanically identically to each one, but second one feels more fleshed out and like they figured out the mechanics a bit more.

I love the day to day cycle Citizen Sleeper 2. There are goals to be met and some have somewhat bad consequences if not met, but Citizen Sleeper 2 doesn’t want the player to feel stressed. There are times when taking it slow is the better option than trying to rush from point to point. Taking time to obtain the resources you need, or help the crew members aboard your vessel. Moments where paying attention and observing the world around you will reward you more often than not. I tried to obtain the best outcome for every story mission, but even when I failed the game did not punish me in the worst way possible. It calmly tells the player the current situation, that they tried their best, and all they can do is simply move on. The game is not just getting you to play past failure, but keep moving despite what happens in life. It’s gameplay and narrative tying together into a neat bow, and it’s the best example I’ve seen of this happening in a video game. When you’re finally done with what you need to do in an area or see nothing left you move on. Fly to the next colony, because there’s a mechanic where if you stay too long with a singular area Laine catches up. It can be stressful at first, but you’re given a lot of time and moving to a new area ticks the counter down by three slots. It’s pushing you, but it’s not stressing you because if it were to stress you the game stops being fun and players may give up on seeking the narrative. The main focus point of the game where everything revolves around.

Everything is woven together wonderfully between the narrative and gameplay, but as much as I love the gameplay loop and pacing there are a few comments to be made about the mechanics at play. Citizen Sleeper 2 as an RPG is great. The mechanics are great, there’s choice to be made, and when the outcome of said choices play out the player feels a heavy impact. Like they just did something despite being another spec amongst the stars. I love having a game where reading the dialogue, paying attention, and playing your cards right is rewarded. However, the game has a weird curve in difficulty and what the player can handle. Whereas most RPGs are manageable at the start and get more difficult later on, Citizen Sleeper 2 is the opposite. Where the game starts off difficult and stressful due to being thrown into a world with multiple things to do right off the bat, but gets easier as you level up your stats and make it so every skill check becomes easier to get by. The way it works is that the more you invest in a stat the higher a stat boost will be in a skill check. For example, level a stat once and you boost the skill check by one. Level up to the highest level and it’ll be increased by two. This does make playing past failure easier, but what’s the point of failure when I can avoid it entirely? You do have perks, but the perks are useless in my opinion. Who the heck chooses perks with weird quirks when you choose what is mainly helping you? The stats which make or break the skill checks.

I do like their attempt at rewarding player’s starting choices. The one of three classes you begin the game with. Looking one of the five stats out, so now trying to do any task involving that stat is more difficult if not impossible.  I love the different colonies you can travel to. The societies they house and the problems they’re dealing with. How at each story point you have to help these people and whether you succeed or not changes where these people end up. The companions are all great and remain memorable from beginning to end. As you help them in their personal tasks and grow closer through their struggles. Bringing different companions on contracts will even net different dialogue, which helps you grow attached to them further and see them as more than tools for the journey. It really is the phrase ‘found family’. People who didn’t have to be there, but chose to tag along and are grateful for doing so. Sharing the same burdens you do and help remind the player they aren’t alone. That you’ll be there for them and they will be there for you till the day your body finally decides to fall apart and you move on from the life you once lived.

Which finally brings us onto the main story. I don’t want to spoil too much, because the game is still rather recent and I personally believe it’s a journey worth experiencing at your own pace. So instead I will say something that’ll offend a ton of RPG players. Citizen Sleeper 2 is basically what Cyberpunk 2077 was aiming for with its story, but if it actually worked. Cyberpunk 2077 was a story about dying and coming to terms with when it finally happens. To accept all that you have done in life, your regrets, your memories, and move on. It didn’t click with me though as the game had a false sense of urgency, seem to struggle with what themes it wanted to explore, had a cast of somewhat forgettable characters that meshed together to all feel the same, and to be honest there’s tons of games that explore the appreciation of life and death better than Cyberpunk 2077 did. One of which is the anime JRPG that I brought up earlier, Octopath Traveler 2, so you know something went wrong. Now I will acknowledge this narrative worked with some people and I can respect that. I just can't understand why people praise it as a gold standard for how these kinds of narrative should be told when it sets the bar extremely low.

Citizen Sleeper 2 is the good version of this kind of narrative. The one that is presented well and manages to stick the landing at the end due to good execution of main themes and components. It’s made clear early on that the condition you suffer from is incurable. No matter how hard you try to cure or combat the condition it’ll get worse. You will die if you let this condition go on, and the only way to cure it is with a reboot. Erasing your current memories and facing having no knowledge if you’ll survive this treatment. Even if you do survive in some way you are still killing yourself. Forgetting who you once were, the bonds you shared, and how you lived your life. Your body breaks down and all you can do is prepare for when that day comes. Wrapping up any relationships you had or spending time with friends and family. Not knowing if this will be the last time you ever see them. Getting one last goodbye before poof, you’re gone. Just about every person who I’ve seen talk about this game shared a statement like this, including Yahtzee Croshaw. When I think of the Sleeper and their conditions I think of many people. I think of all the cancer patients in this world. The folks with heart conditions, unsure of when it stops beating. Elderly with dementia slowly forgetting who they once were or the face of their own children. My parents and older relatives who will pass away before. It’s a f*cking terrifying to think of constantly, but at the same time this is part of life. We have to accept when this will happen and move on as individuals. Grow up, have children or make new friends, tend to them and eventually our time will. Citizen Sleeper 2 is a game about life, suffering, perseverance, and death. It was beautiful and made me sad when it rolled credits. I hope it enlightens you much like how it enlightened me. At the end of the day I am going to have to give Citizen Sleeper 2: Wayward Vector a 10/10 for being absolutely incredible. 

10/10, Incredible