Citizen Sleeper (2022)
A cyberpunk inspired video game that plays out like your favorite TTRPG.
Reviewed on Xbox Series X
Citizen Sleeper is my sleeper hit of 2022 by far. I had never heard of this game until I saw it got a nomination for The Game Awards and was nominated for a FAM Award (A Fammy if you will). I looked it up and to my delight, it was on Gamepass and it sounded pretty interesting.
Set in this cyberpunk dystopian future, you play as a "Sleeper", which is basically a robot with a human conscience. Through out the game we figure out that you sold your conscience, for some reason, to a corporation to put into a robot to go do manual labor. The game begins after you escaped from this corporation and get rescued by someone on "The Eye". The Eye, or Erlin's Eye, is the name of this space station outpost, almost like a city in space. It is here where the game actually takes place.
Citizen Sleeper plays out like a Tabletop Roleplaying Game (TTRPG). At the beginning of each day, you get a certain number of dice rolls. Depending on what you want to do and what paths you want to follow, you spend those dice rolls. The higher the dice roll the better the chance to succeed, just like in a game of Dungeons & Dragons. Certain tasks also have higher risks and rewards. A typical day might look like spending a dice on a bartending shift to earn money, then going to the noodle shop to refuel and talk to the local merchant, spending a couple credits on feeding a stray cat, talking to the local mechanic about catching a war criminal, and then helping a co-worker by babysitting his daughter so he can take a shift at the local spaceship mechanical shop.
As fun as all that sounds, it's really in the interactions with the NPCs where Citizen Sleeper shines. As days past and you explore The Eye, you will run into a number of people who will want your help. The stories that unfold from here is truly captivating. These storylines will dictate where your game will end, depending on your choices. For example, I fell in love with the side quest where you helped a Dad and his daughter get off The Eye. I loved those NPCs so much, I kind of stopped following my other quests to complete theirs. Once I was able to to secure their passage off the ship, they offered to let me go with them, which I took them up on that offer and the game ended after a short epilogue. However I could have declined their invite and kept following other storylines which I left unresolved. It should be noted that after the game "ends", you can continue where you left off and keep finishing these threads.
Conclusion
Citizen Sleeper combines a great cyberpunk setting, a fantastically well written story, and blends it with a unique play mechanic. It's commentary on society and capitalism is subtle but also not too subtle that it can't be found without a magnifying glass. I probably finished this game in less than 8 hours, but I also stuck to one primary storyline so your milage may very. But it's only about 2GBs and I think it is very much worth the hard drive space. While this may not have been my favorite game of the year, I think it has my favorite setting of the year.