If you haven't played the fabulous Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector yet, well, what are you waiting for? We'd recommend bookmarking this one if you haven't, as this piece contains major spoilers for the endgame. You've been warned...
"Wake up, Sleeper."
I knew next to nothing about Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector when a trailer first caught my eye back in the early days of 2025. Its predecessor, Citizen Sleeper, somehow managed to slip under my radar and, despite my love for sci-fi, TTRPGs and, weirdly, Severance, the sequel threatened to do much the same.
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But that trailer grabbed me. I'm not sure whether it was the art, the music, or the bubbling mystery that ran under the whole thing, but I picked up a copy on launch day, spent one evening getting to grips with the mechanics and then bam, 48 hours later I was sobbing into a cushion as the credits rolled.
This sweet little game about found families in space, sticking it to the man and breaking free from the restraints of a broken regime might feature one of the most emotionally devastating finales I've ever had the pleasure of seeing. Despite, on the surface, being a game all about life, Citizen Sleeper 2 made me think about death in a way very few games have ever done before.
But before I get to that, much like the previous Gareth Damian Martin (of the game's one-person team, Jump Over The Age) joint, Citizen Sleeper 2 is a text-based game about finding your place in the universe. It has the same dice mechanics where you roll five dice at the start of a 'cycle' (one in-game day), and then use them on whichever task you please — be that something simple like working a shift in a nearby bar, or a little more intense like rummaging around a wrecked space station before the entire thing collapses.
Your Sleeper is not some galactic hero who can do everything on their own
You play as a Sleeper — a robot body who's had the working mind of some lazy sod on Earth uploaded into it so it can crack on with dangerous menial labour in space while its fleshy originator lives comfortably back on terra firma (see? There's the Severance connection!). You jet between space stations, chatting to the locals, taking on missions, adding friends to your crew while generally trying to survive, all while the ominous owner of your mechanised body hunts you across the belt to reinstate you as his slave.
It all sounds pretty bleak and stressful, and it very much is — stress is an in-game mechanic, in fact — but Citizen Sleeper 2 is also unexpectedly joyful. Successfully squeaking a job with less-than-ideal dice rolls gave me as big a kick as beating any Soulslike boss. The character writing is so damn good that I would nervously weigh up whether to take my beloved crewmates like Juni or Bliss on high-risk missions because I didn't want any harm to come to them. Your Sleeper is not some galactic hero who can do everything on their own — depending on which class you pick at the start of the game, certain skills will be completely locked out to you.
All of this means that for roughly 10 hours, I came to adore my Sleeper and the friends I surrounded them with. We ignited a revolution, ended a corporate war, and escaped from the clutches of our former master. We also collected weird cooking ingredients from across The Belt, repainted our ship god knows how many times, and adopted a cat. It was all so happy, so triumphant, but Jump Over The Age had one last curveball.
We had won the day, but, much like Frodo Baggins trying to return to a simple life in the Shire after casting the One Ring into the fires of Mount Doom, my Sleeper had been changed beyond repair. Their body was decaying. The only cure was a potentially personality-wiping reboot, where all those hopes, dreams, and friendships risked being lost in the process. Most devastating of all, I was given all the time I wanted to think about it.
Naturally, my first instinct was to ignore the finale that I was hurtling towards and go back to mopping up the remaining sidequests that my ragtag crew and I left unattended. I picked up more ingredients, hacked a few more computers, cleared some nasty debris. Or, I tried to.
Like I said, my Sleeper's body was decaying, and jobs that were previously easy with five decent-rolling dice soon became not-so-simple. The die would irreparably break, rolls wouldn't come out as high as they used to, my stress levels would rise uncontrollably at the smallest of tasks. My Sleeper was dying, and try as I might to forget, the game kept reminding me.
It's the exact ending I wanted. The one that felt right
Of course, this isn't the first example of a game where I felt the cold grip of Lady Death. Zelda games have the incessant beeps of panic when Link's hearts are low; 3D Mario clutches his knees and wheezes when the end is near; even adventure games like Tomb Raider add a little screen blur or burn-in to up the stakes. But in all of these instances, you can stumble through and make it to the next health point, with all of your abilities still intact.
Not in Citizen Sleeper, 2. There are no retries, no extra lives, and no hope of returning to your former strength. Instead, there's a visceral day-by-day deterioration. I could feel the life slipping out of the character I had grown to love, and there was nothing I could do about it.
After successfully wrapping up a simple task that used to take me one dice roll but now took several cycles, I decided it was time to say my goodbyes.
I visited each of my crewmates individually, soaking up the last lines of dialogue while I still could. I headed back to my ship one last time and set the paintwork to my personal favourite, with the idea that my co-pilot, Serafin, could still take to the skies in style after I was gone. I gave one last meal to the cat.
The reboot is the end of Starward Vector, but it's yours to take on as you please. As the world outside of your Sleeper's perception fades to black, the game throws a few final decisions your way: what future do you want your Sleeper to imagine in their final moments, and who do you picture it with? It's the game's final blow.
I initially opted for a life outside The Belt, travelling the stars with the hunky Yu-Jin, but an "Are You Sure?" option profoundly left me all teary again. How could I leave Serafin, the friend who had been by my side since the very start? I backed out of my choice and instead selected a future where he and I explore The Belt together forever, hopping between stations wherever duty calls.
It's the exact ending I wanted, the one that felt right. And with one final line, the screen faded to black and the credits rolled:
And then, somewhere nearby, a button is pressed. And all at once, one thing ends and something new begins.
I sobbed as the names scrolled up the screen. I sobbed again as I recounted to my partner what had happened. Then I just sat and stared at the wall for a bit.
I finished Citizen Sleeper 2 about 10 months ago, and I can honestly say that I've thought about its ending almost every day since. The story, dice gameplay and music all deserve their praise, but a game hasn't hit me this profoundly in the 'thinking about death at 3am' feels since Outer Wilds.
Hey, is there a more morbid reason for a game to make your GOTY list?