The people yearn for games set in space. Perhaps we are all just looking for something to fill the massive void left in our hearts by the continued absence of Mass Effect. Yet the perfect replacement already exists. In fact, it even has a sequel! Both 2022’s Citizen Sleeper and 2025’s Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector boast some of the best sci-fi stories in games, with a focus on deeply emotional storytelling and tabletop-inspired mechanics. As of today, both games are now available on Nintendo Switch 2, giving players the perfect excuse to enjoy a double-feature of space-faring adventure.
Mass Effect isn’t a bad place to start when describing Citizen Sleeper. Like BioWare’s legendary series, Citizen Sleeper‘s sci-fi setting puts a large emphasis on world building. That is usually a nebulous word that refers to things like “lore,” but in the hands of developer Jump Over the Age, it feels more like storytelling in its own right. Every person you meet throughout both games has a personality and history informed by the overarching mechanisms of things outside their control. From corporate entities controlling finite resources to the literal movement of celestial bodies, life in the world of Citizen Sleeper exists on the shoulders of giants.
The first Citizen Sleeper is a game about how people come together in the shadow of these giants. You awake on board a massive space station called The Eye. As a Sleeper, you are a digital copy of a brain given a synthetic body and used as slave labor. Having escaped your captors and finding yourself without money or shelter, it becomes a daily fight to survive. This begins by relying on the kindness of strangers. An old man will give you a bed and some work. The local bartender might offer some shifts. Pull your weight and you’ll get something in return. Through the day-to-day cycle of events, Citizen Sleeper employs systems more in-line with Disco Elysium.
Dice are rolled at the beginning of each day to pass skill checks associated with tasks. This finite number of dice mirrors the resource scarcity present in The Eye, forcing the player to make choices about what exactly can be accomplished or pursued. While trying to eke out a living is the goal, the Sleeper will find themselves becoming part of the community. Similarly to Disco Elysium, this results in lengthy blocks of dialogue and internal monologue that flesh out the world and its inhabitants. The number of stories that form an interconnected web aboard The Eye is what makes Citizen Sleeper truly shine. These stories also dovetail beautifully with the tabletop-inspired mechanics, as sometimes failure can open up even more interesting paths. There are rarely any true fail states in the game that require you to reload. Instead, a skill check gone wrong has narrative consequences that naturally evolve the story without punishing the player too hard. At its best, Citizen Sleeper‘s world reacts to the player like a good DM would, turning everything into an opportunity.
Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector takes the same systems and approach to narrative as its predecessor and lets it loose on a grander scale. No longer is the player stuck on The Eye. Instead, as a new Sleeper, you slowly collect a ragtime crew on a spaceship that travels amongst a number of planets and space stations. Tabletop mechanics and a heavy emphasis on narrative are still present, but Starward Vector also leans more directly into its Mass Effect influences. This is a game for people who love Mass Effect 2. Building a crew and following the threads of their individual stories across space makes for a more episodic title, but one that continues to focus on the deeply human aspects of these lives.
Like the best cyberpunk and sci-fi stories, both Citizen Sleeper games are about something much more down to Earth. They are stories about people coming together in the face of struggle and supporting each other. They are hopeful visions of humanity’s potential for good.
Citizen Sleeper and Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector are now available on Nintendo Switch 2.
The 25 best Switch 2 games
Here’s what you should be playing on Nintendo’s new console