The members of the development team behind the critically acclaimed narrative game Citizen Sleeper have announced they will band together once more to create their next game, again choosing to partner with publisher, Fellow Traveller.
Designer, writer, and artist Gareth Damian Martin, character artist Guillaume Singelin, and composer Amos Reddy will all be involved in the next title.
The news was made in tandem with the first anniversary of Citizen Sleeper, following a year where the title was warmly received and showered with nominations and honourable mentions during the game industry’s award season, primarily in Narrative and Design.
Described by Martin as a ‘role-playing in the ruins of interplanetary capitalism,’ Citizen Sleeper has been praised for its depiction of themes of depression and anxiety, as well as the struggles of trying to exist in a world where the odds are so heavily stacked against you.
Read: On Citizen Sleeper and precarious survival in a capitalist world
In a fireside chat during LudoNarraCon 2022, Martin remarked that much of the game was rooted in his experiences suffering from clinical depression.
‘That idea of waking up every morning and not knowing how you’re going to face the day. Or what state you’re going to be in when you open your eyes. Are you going to be in a state where you’ve got energy? Are you going to be in a state where you’ve got too much energy, like you’ve [rolled] five sixes and you don’t even know what to do? Or do you wake up with a handful of ones?’
Writing about Citizen Sleeper for GamesHub, critic David Wildgoose remarked that the game ‘truthfully represent[s] the sometimes extreme variability in how well-equipped any of us might feel to face the events of the day ahead.’
GamesHub contributor Percy Ranson also remarked on the game’s astute themes of nihilism, though noted an optimistic message behind it.
Read: How I learned to stop worrying, and be an optimistic nihilist
‘The Sleeper’s existence is the most fundamental form of nihilism – specifically created as an object rather than a living being, their life (or consciousness) doesn’t just lack meaning; it’s actively considered surplus to requirement.’
‘Despite this, they are alive, and with life comes both the desire to keep living, and to meaningfully exist. Faced with the same impending demise as V, the Sleeper strives to circumvent their fate through the same process of forming bonds and making friends.’
The Citizen Sleeper team will be participating in LudoNarraCon 2023. See the full LudoNarraCon 2023 schedule.
Citizen Sleeper is available on PC, Nintendo Switch, PS4, PS5, Xbox Series X/S, and Xbox One.
