An update for Citizen Sleeper
With the release of Episode Purge, Citizen Sleeper’s three episode post-launch DLC expansion is now complete and the game has even more to offer with a thrilling late game storyline that delivers an immersive new narrative arc introducing additional characters, lore and locations. Players returning to Erlin’s Eye might even find themselves running into some familiar faces!
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This review is for all three of the DLC episodes.
These episodes work well as more Citizen Sleeper even though they aren't seeking to add much to the game beyond a bit more narrative. It isn't quite as striking to me as the base game is and the mechanics begin to break down a bit more by this point.
I enjoyed playing through them and the narrative is pretty much in line with the rest of the game. It works well enough, but most every character is a familiar combination of extreme emotional availability and deeply rooted trauma. This is definitely just the writing style of the game, but the more characters that get added, the more apparent it becomes. The events are sort of unique and interesting sci-fi that I enjoyed having a hand in. Like the base game, it feels afraid to pull its punches -- everything has most of the consequence removed from it and bad outcomes are eminently avoidable.
My sleeper is basically a god at this point. I can do any task immediately and most of the timers and tasks here to provide some level of difficulty simply don't. I don't know if this is avoidable in the systems themselves, but part of the problem is that the systems are used as problem solvers for every situation, rather than skewing occasionally into ways for the player to make decisions or influence things. One specific roadblock at the end of these DLCs almost feels like you are going to be making intentional choices about how things play out, but in the end you just do everything for everyone and the narrative moves along to where it was always going. Your binary choice at the end only having a minor impact on things.
These episodes are quick to play through and give a bit more shape to this world and a bit more catharsis to the base game. Definitely worth checking out, but I would have liked them to push these systems, narrative, and world a bit farther.
These episodes work well as more Citizen Sleeper even though they aren't seeking to add much to the game beyond a bit more narrative. It isn't quite as striking to me as the base game is and the mechanics begin to break down a bit more by this point.
I enjoyed playing through them and the narrative is pretty much in line with the rest of the game. It works well enough, but most every character is a familiar combination of extreme emotional availability and deeply rooted trauma. This is definitely just the writing style of the game, but the more characters that get added, the more apparent it becomes. The events are sort of unique and interesting sci-fi that I enjoyed having a hand in. Like the base game, it feels afraid to pull its punches -- everything has most of the consequence removed from it and bad outcomes are eminently avoidable.
My sleeper is basically a god at this point. I can do any task immediately and most of the timers and tasks here to provide some level of difficulty simply don't. I don't know if this is avoidable in the systems themselves, but part of the problem is that the systems are used as problem solvers for every situation, rather than skewing occasionally into ways for the player to make decisions or influence things. One specific roadblock at the end of these DLCs almost feels like you are going to be making intentional choices about how things play out, but in the end you just do everything for everyone and the narrative moves along to where it was always going. Your binary choice at the end only having a minor impact on things.
These episodes are quick to play through and give a bit more shape to this world and a bit more catharsis to the base game. Definitely worth checking out, but I would have liked them to push these systems, narrative, and world a bit farther.
I played all the dlcs and, obviously, the main plot. Citizen Sleeper offers a very well crafted narrative, full of choices and rounded characters. The main objective is to survive in a society finding allies. This will not always be easy. This game does not hold your hand and you will be totally free to choose your own path.
The gameplay loop is simple, and it reminds a tabletop game. I like it, and I can not wait for the sequel.
The gameplay loop is simple, and it reminds a tabletop game. I like it, and I can not wait for the sequel.
Citizen Sleeper goes out with a whimper, a slow pan of the whole Eye crawling into view while its spacious soundtrack plays out its last song. Maybe The Eye meant more to you than it did to me in this moment. The stacatto release of Citizen Sleeper's DLC has an obvious impulse to imbue The Eye with real time, like comics and television, but, without reimagining the core systems, the gap mostly highlights the games biggest faults. The character writing and navigation remains the strongest element, but it all drowns without any return onramp. The ease at which you can absolutely steam roll every DLC episode with zero preparation just feels like such a massive oversight. I understand that it's free DLC, but making updates is an opportunity to revise and edit. The endgame pre-DLC already had this issue and tacking more frictionless tasks on to my level 1000 Sleeper makes the most interesting ludo-narrative synthesis eat shit. Even playing along with the continued individualist cynicism that sours most of the endings or the character arc twists, Purge is a really pathetic end to an otherwise compelling imagination space of a game.