Citizen Sleeper 2 is something special—and I know how hollow that can sound in a sea of indie darlings vying for the same praise. But this game earns it. It’s a rare fusion of evocative writing, immersive sci-fi worldbuilding, and mechanics that force you to make hard choices: gamble for the best outcome or play it safe and risk losing something greater. Developer Gareth Damian Martin’s passion bleeds through every moment, cementing Citizen Sleeper 2 not just as a compelling sequel, but as a meaningful milestone in storytelling within games.
It’s a powerful reminder of how far the medium has come—no longer just about reflexes or puzzle-solving, but emotional engagement too.
That said, this experience won’t be for everyone. The gameplay leans heavily on text-based dialogue, passive systems, and dice-driven outcomes. If you’re a book lover, a fan of tabletop RPGs, or just someone who appreciates character-driven sci-fi, there’s a high chance this one will click with you. It’s bolstered by a moody, ambient soundtrack, stylized art, and a small but memorable crew aboard your ship, The Rig. While its more linear ending may not hit with the same impact as the first game’s branching finale, it still lands with thoughtfulness and weight.
The Sleeper Wakes Again
For newcomers, Citizen Sleeper 2 kicks off with mystery. You play as a Sleeper—an artificial consciousness in a synthetic body—who’s on the run from a powerful crime syndicate, trying to reclaim lost memories and its agency. As you explore space, you’ll visit distinctive locations with their own maps, side quests, and recruit potential companions. Most interactions and events are governed by your pool of five dice, which determine the outcomes of everything from hacking terminals to scavenging supplies.
This dice mechanic is the gameplay’s backbone and it introduces tension into the slower-paced, narrative-driven sequences. The quality of the writing can range from truly engaging and emotional text to youth-fictionesque and purely serviceable moments. However, it’s the adrenaline from rolling your last dice as you attempt to break into an abandoned ship, as your supplies run low and your crew’s stress reaches an all time high that counterbalances the more patient aspects of the narrative.
There are a couple key mechanics that allow the passive dice rolls to feel engaging and dynamic. The first, and obvious reason, being the randomness imbued with each roll. However, there are ways to upgrade your character and raise the percentage of each roll in your favor.
Stats, Skills, and Strategy
To bring it back a step, there are three classes to choose from: Operator, Machinist, and Extractor. Each emphasizes a different playstyle—Operators excel at hacking, Extractors at physical tasks—but the differences are more about flavor than function. In most scenarios, as long as you succeed the roll, the result is effectively the same, no matter your class. Where they do matter is in shaping role-playing elements and defining your character through specific, smaller actions.
For example, you will always be presented with a minimum of two options to solve a given task. Each description may vary depending on which route you take. You could brute force your way through the door ahead or hack a terminal with one of your more proficient companions. Upon success or failure, the given text may alter based on how you decide to approach the problem. I found that the ultimate conclusion was relatively the same and mostly dictated by a positive or negative roll.
But this did dictate how I viewed my Sleeper. These small variations in text-based events create a level of immersion and agency within Citizen Sleeper 2 that truly makes the experience engaging, and allows your version of the Sleeper to feel personal.
Additionally, a modest skill tree lets you enhance your Sleeper as you go, pushing you toward stealth, tech-savviness, or brute-force options. These upgrades tilt dice rolls in your favor by adding positive modifiers, which helps—but never completely removes—the lurking danger of failure.
Despite being able to influence the dice rolls, especially in the latter half of the game, the mechanic always felt active in a sense, as I was occasionally reminded that shit could hit the fan with one or two bad rolls and I could be stranded without any supplies or ability to make it to the next space station. And to be clear, this did happen an hour into my first run as I was still getting a hang of the systems and, admittedly, was a little too enthusiastic with my dice rolls.
New to the sequel is the stress and glitch system. The more pressure you and your crew endure, the more limited your dice pool becomes. That can lead to entire turns where you’re stuck with fewer or even zero usable actions, emphasizing the importance of each decision. Whether you’re tackling a major mission or just hunting for supplies, failure always feels one bad roll away.
It’s the People, Not Just the Problems
Despite the upgraded mechanics, Citizen Sleeper 2 shines brightest through its characters. The world is vast and esoteric, but it’s through your interactions with companions that it becomes truly alive. Much of the game’s lore—about the corporations, the collapse, and forgotten civilizations—filters through your crew members’ perspectives.
Most companions are optional, though some are introduced through main missions and can impact both narrative choices and mission success. You’ll usually bring two allies with you on a job, and picking ones with strengths that complement your weaknesses often gives you the best odds. Each companion has their own class similar to the Sleeper, which does add a layer of strategy when deciding who to bring along for specific missions.
But the real connection lies in the relationships themselves. Spending time with them, which essentially means bringing companions on more dangerous excursions, opens up deeper storylines and moral complexities. Juni, a tech genius with trust issues and a hunger for knowledge, became a standout in my run. Her story gradually unfolded in surprising, intimate ways that wouldn’t have been possible without building that connection. Before I knew it, I began to bring her on every mission, which allowed me to experience more genuine interactions with her, but also bolster the my own narrative I had created as I played.
That’s what really makes Citizen Sleeper 2 special. The world is unknown, and as you explore more and more you begin to fill the empty spaces with your own interpretations. Creating a level of immersiveness that is rarely attainable. And as you begin to choose favorites, you open up the door for replayability, as each companion has their own storyline that can be easily missed if not pursued.
The Verdict
Citizen Sleeper 2 is a worthy successor—a thoughtful, emotionally rich journey that further elevates one of the most unique indie RPGs of recent years. Its writing, world-building, and art direction are consistently compelling. The dice mechanics, while passive in nature, are engaging and tense, keeping you on your toes. And its soundtrack and visual design wrap the entire experience in a beautifully melancholic atmosphere.
This isn’t a game for everyone—but for those it is for, it’s likely to be one of the most memorable games of 2025. It’s a love letter to storytelling in games, and it deserves all the praise it can get.
