Take my eyes, take them aside
Citizen Sleeper 2 is a heartfelt sci-fi RPG developed by Jump Over the Age and published by Fellow Traveller. Priced at .99 / £20.99, the game offers a unique experience where players manage resources, go on missions, and delve into the depths of their android body. Reviewed on NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060, AMD Ryzen 7 5800 8-Core Processor, 16GB RAM, Force MP600 SSD, the game does not feature multiplayer functionality. You can find more information on the official site.
I try not to think about my body as a ‘vessel’ too much, if I can help it. The idea that my mind is just a rider in something that can wear, tear, and break down isn’t a comforting thought—but it’s an increasingly pressing one. Citizen Sleeper 2 reminds me of this fact twofold: It’s a game about the slow degradation of the body, sure, but it’s also a sequel. It’s an attempt to show growth, to do more. But in trying to grow, it’s become fuzzier around the edges. Fractured, bumpy, nicked in places, and lovely in its own way.
Citizen Sleeper 2 understands that you don’t get to choose how your body grows. You can decide on some things if you’re one of the lucky ones, sure, but eventually everything bends and falls apart. The solution for your character, an android ‘Sleeper’, is to start stapling bits of yourself back together with spare parts.
My arms and legs, they get in the way
Citizen Sleeper 2’s mechanics just don’t gel as well with its themes. In the first game, your initial scrambling for resources—and the slow, gradual comforts you achieve afterwards—paired nicely with the desperate circumstance you found yourself in. Citizen Sleeper 2, meanwhile, never quite properly gets its dice rolling in harmony with its storytelling.
The game is keen to start you off with a sense of feeling hunted, and it’s not impossible to slide into a death spiral from the get-go—but as long as you build up just the slightest bit of momentum, this pressure rarely ever risks catching up to you.
Take my hands, they’ll understand
Despite my gripes and complaints, though, I can’t help but look at Citizen Sleeper 2 with a burning fondness—there are parts of it I don’t like, but they don’t spoil the parts I do enjoy. This is, after all, a game about the beauty of broken, flawed, and fractured things—and it’s fitting that the machine of it all creaks and groans under the strain of being well-loved by its creator.
