Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector

One of the most successful games from narrative games specialist Fellow Traveler is Citizen Sleeper, which has over a million players. Now the dice-based role-playing game, developed by Jump Over the Age, is entering the next round.

In Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector, players control an amnesiac android, a Sleeper, an emulation of a human mind housed in an artificial, human-like body that also has some malfunctions. The Sleeper is on the run from their corporate creators and the gang that wants to control them for nefarious purposes. With those bounty hunters in hot pursuit, players choose a class, steal a ship, build a crew, and chart a course across the larger and more varied world of the Starward Belt (rather than a single space station as in the first game) to uncover secrets and checkered pasts. There, players must complete missions and contracts from the Belt's many hubs - from exploring derelict ships, to high-stakes heists, to surveying asteroids - all telling a gripping and multi-layered sci-fi story with distinctive characters, but only in English and only in text form.

A lot depends on the roll of the die - from skill checks to tough decisions. It's a tabletop-inspired, turn-based game. This means that players have to think carefully about which dice roll to use for which action, and where to take the risk of possibly getting a bad result with a low roll. It's all about luck and choice, as well as risk and reward, with even greater rewards for the risk of stress, dice damage and glitches in the Sleeper system. Each character class has a unique 'push' ability that can be upgraded and customised to turn the tide. Each class offers different tactical ways to manipulate or reroll the dice. "Player choice is a massive part of the Citizen Sleeper experience, and the sequel deepens this with new skill checks that allow you to express your class and character in scenes, as well as branching storylines that will ask you to make hard choices. The future of your character is up to you," the publisher said. Citizen Sleeper 2 is longer than its predecessor, and the difficulties and classes add to the replay value. The Dangerous difficulty is both harder and has permadeath.

Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector was developed by Jump Over the Age, a one-person game development studio founded by Gareth Damian Martin in London. Their first game was In Other Waters, followed by Citizen Sleeper in May 2022. For Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector, Gareth Damian Martin is once again joined by comic book artist, Guillaume Singelin and composer Amos Roddy - both were already responsible for the art, music and sound of the first part. Gareth also holds a PhD in experimental literature from Royal Holloway, University of London.

Publisher of the game is the boutique narrative games label Fellow Traveller, which has confirmed six titles for this year: Afterlove EP, Wander Stars, Great God Grove, Pine: A Story of Loss, and Kulebra and the Souls of Limbo - as well as Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector. Fellow Traveller was founded by Chris Wright and originally launched in 2013 under the name of Surprise Attack Games. The company was established to be a new kind of indie games label. "In 2018 the decision was made to rebrand the label to Fellow Traveller Games to better reflect the motivation of working in very close partnership with developers and its mission to explore the uncharted space of what narrative games can be," the company says.

"We have a simple philosophy here - money is the means not the end. It’s not that we’re not shooting for commercial success because that’s still really important; but we aim to make money so that we can publish these remarkable games, as opposed to publishing games as a way to make money. (...) We have reinvested our profits every year for the last 10 years and taken a slow and steady approach vs chasing growth at all costs. Staying small and focused has put us in the fortunate position to be able to make our own decisions, letting dev teams breathe when they’ve needed it and not rushing to fill gaps in our schedule caused by delays. Not only are we seeing the results in the quality of our slate in the coming year but we’ve also been able to grow our team, increase our funding budgets and sign games further out than ever before." - Chris Wright, Founder and Managing Director Fellow Traveller (2024)

Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector was released on 31 January 2025 on PC, Switch, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and Game Pass.