Citizen Sleeper Review

In the future there will be those who exist as only a digitized consciousness trapped in an artificial body. These beings are called Sleepers, and in Citizen Sleeper, you will be playing one. There’s a catch with these bodies and that they are owned by a corporation, Essen-Arp, a corporation that is only interested in the bottom line, and a corporation that you have signed a contract with to use this body. To make things even more complicated, your body requires special, proprietary, injections to keep from breaking down. These injections are of course a trade secret of Essen-Arp,and are yet another way to keep their “workforce” from leaving them. There are those, such as yourself, who decide that enough is enough and that even if time is short they would like to live the life they have left without Essen-Arp. 

Many Sleepers try to board a cargo ship bound for a far away station called Erlin’s Eye. Sadly that ship was attacked just as it was getting close to the station, but by some miracle, you and you alone were able to survive. This is where the game really starts. You will have to find your way on this station. You will have to make your own way by performing different tasks/jobs. Essen-Arp is not going to give up looking for you so it will be through your actions, the relationships you make, and ultimately a lot of luck that you might find a way to live a fulfilling life.

There is A LOT of reading that comes with this game, but to be honest most of it is needed to help build the story of the space station, and of all their citizens. You can potentially make friends with different characters, help out different factions, cross paths with rogue AIs, and hack into different things throughout the game. When you start the game you will be given the choice of a pre-built character, or you can create one yourself. These builds will have different allocations of stat points which will help you perform tasks in different ways. There will be chances to improve your stats through the game, but your starting build is still going to be key in crafting the story/life that you’re going to live on this station.

It took me a couple of tries before I truly felt like I understood the game and was able to play it the way I wanted to. So in terms of total game time I spent over 12 hours. Now the playthrough can be less, or it can be more. This game has a lot of different endings that you can encounter, and many of them are worth a look. This is definitely not a game for those looking for action packed adventure, but it is an amazingly crafted game with a story in which you really feel like you get to know the characters that you interact with. There will be tough decisions to be made, there will be tricky situations that you’ll find yourself in, but in the end, like I said, with a little or a lot of luck you’re going to be in for one hell of an experience.