In the post-Disco Elysium world, every goddamn socialist game dev wants to be the one to make the next Disco-type game. None of them have been successful -- and I'm not sure it's a particularly worthy endeavor -- but even when they fail to reach the heights of Disco Elysium, they can end up being quite good on their own terms.
Citizen Sleeper is a game that made me emotional several times while playing it. That is less a credit to its generally subpar and terminally online writing than it is to the fact that the narratives that this game taps into are deeply powerful and emotionally resonant stories about belonging, connection, and finding your place in a world that is entirely hostile to you. When the game dips into ideology, it is often far too explicit and on the nose, and it lacks the ambition required to justify that lack of subtlety. As such, the game is at its best when it leans into its world, which is crafted in such a way that the political themes that are so often shoddily handled directly are instead personally felt and understood through the hostility of the world.
Because of this, it is a massive flaw that the systems which, towards the beginning of the game, are expertly crafted in such a way to keep you constantly on the edge of disaster ultimately end up crumbling. All sense of tension is lost, you acquire absurd amounts of currency with ease, and due to the game enabling you to do everything you want to do, the game systems become a superfluous time waster between underbaked bursts of dialogue and countless time-locked events. You are left with a game that ends up drifting away into nothingness until you choose to ultimately shut off the game and be done.
In fairness, perhaps some of this is variable based on how you choose to end your game. I strongly believed that the choice which made most sense for my Sleeper was to remain on The Eye, and I also believe this was the choice that the game was thematically trying to lead the player towards. Maybe other endings were a satisfying cap to the game, but between the lack of an actual end point and new quests being added in DLC, it feels as if the game was never quite finished.
Perhaps the most egregious fault of this game, though, is that not a single fucking person proofread the script. Countless obvious errors litter it. Any game which attempts to largely position itself as a great game due to its writing should hold itself to a far higher standard of quality than this.
Despite all these critiques, this game was largely quite enjoyable. I played it in a single session and apart from a little tedium towards the end, I think my time was well spent with this game. Certainly far better spent than with the other major attempt at replicating Disco Elysium's writing this year.
Citizen Sleeper is a game that made me emotional several times while playing it. That is less a credit to its generally subpar and terminally online writing than it is to the fact that the narratives that this game taps into are deeply powerful and emotionally resonant stories about belonging, connection, and finding your place in a world that is entirely hostile to you. When the game dips into ideology, it is often far too explicit and on the nose, and it lacks the ambition required to justify that lack of subtlety. As such, the game is at its best when it leans into its world, which is crafted in such a way that the political themes that are so often shoddily handled directly are instead personally felt and understood through the hostility of the world.
Because of this, it is a massive flaw that the systems which, towards the beginning of the game, are expertly crafted in such a way to keep you constantly on the edge of disaster ultimately end up crumbling. All sense of tension is lost, you acquire absurd amounts of currency with ease, and due to the game enabling you to do everything you want to do, the game systems become a superfluous time waster between underbaked bursts of dialogue and countless time-locked events. You are left with a game that ends up drifting away into nothingness until you choose to ultimately shut off the game and be done.
In fairness, perhaps some of this is variable based on how you choose to end your game. I strongly believed that the choice which made most sense for my Sleeper was to remain on The Eye, and I also believe this was the choice that the game was thematically trying to lead the player towards. Maybe other endings were a satisfying cap to the game, but between the lack of an actual end point and new quests being added in DLC, it feels as if the game was never quite finished.
Perhaps the most egregious fault of this game, though, is that not a single fucking person proofread the script. Countless obvious errors litter it. Any game which attempts to largely position itself as a great game due to its writing should hold itself to a far higher standard of quality than this.
Despite all these critiques, this game was largely quite enjoyable. I played it in a single session and apart from a little tedium towards the end, I think my time was well spent with this game. Certainly far better spent than with the other major attempt at replicating Disco Elysium's writing this year.