“Wake up, Sleeper.” In Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector, you awaken once again into your new body, its context, its emotions—or rather, singular emotion: fear. Somewhere, another you has signed away your consciousness to be emulated into a sleeper, a synthetic body built to toil in deep space on behalf of monolithic corporation Essen-Arp. Once again, you’ve escaped your overlords, only to fall into the hands of a band of pirate-slavers. You strive for freedom at whatever cost you’re willing to pay, using whatever dice may fall in your favor. Once again, developer Gareth Damian Martin of Jump Over the Age has teamed with composer and sound designer Amos Roddy to make a moody, engrossing cyberpunk soundscape, now a very sizable 34 tracks at 1 hour and 41 minutes. I recently spoke glowingly of the first Citizen Sleeper’s soundtrack; can lightning strike twice?
My short and honest answer is that although Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector expands on and refines the first game in every way, the music doesn’t exactly arrive at new and exciting places the same way the first did. That’s not to say this isn’t a fine, polished soundtrack. It allows itself both louder and quieter moments than Citizen Sleeper and is, on the whole, more compositionally ambitious and complex. Many tracks, like “Hex,” “The Belt Flows,” and “Blade in the Dark” (a nice shoutout to the tabletop role-playing game that partially inspired the Citizen Sleeper series) build up and take off in very satisfying ways previously unseen.
Rather than strictly neon-tinged, conglomerate-choked cyberpunk, CS2 opts to be more spacey, ambient, and doe-eyed in places, coinciding with the game’s more free-range exploration of the stars. I do, however, think that there’s less diversity in instrumentation and sound here and a consequent lack of individuality between many tracks. Considering how the music shuffles randomly during gameplay, perhaps Roddy made a conscious decision to use a more consistent tone. Yet CS1 managed to set clear themes and roam wildly within its own boundaries in fun, sonically impressive ways that CS2 distinctively lacks.
Now for the plentiful good! Opening title track “Starward Vector” is a resonant, somber, ambient track that sets the tone well and reminds me strongly of Hotline Miami 2’s title theme, “Untitled 2” by the band The Green Kingdom. One of the final tracks, “Aperture,” feels like a sister track to this, bookending the album with its fuzzy industrial elements that sound like a train rolling by in the night. “Signalchaser” has uptempo, lo-fi hip-hop elements previously unheard in the series. “Fading Glint” (which feels very similar to some spacefaring themes from Mass Effect 2) and “Another Cycle” (one of my personal favorites) have quickly pulsing and fluctuating synths that make you feel like you’re ascending and evolving from your fleshy, earthbound body. I loved the gentle static of “Little Sister,” a particularly emotional track, and the electronic melody worming its way through the latter half of “Blink.”
Finally, the first Citizen Sleeper’s closing track and ending theme, “Possible Futures,” makes a reappearance here in the rearranged “Imagined Futures” and “Imagined Futures (Piano).” I think it was a smart thematic choice to have the two versions—one drowned in fuzzy, crackling interference, and the other being the most acoustic, human track on the soundtrack. Depending on player choices, perhaps a free and happy life can be lived in an artificial body.
While the music of Citizen Sleeper 2 doesn’t quite capture the magic of its predecessor and is less likely to find its way into my everyday playlists, it is a masterfully produced soundtrack that complements and enhances what you experience in-game.
Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector’s soundtrack is available for streaming and digital purchase wherever you find music. Be sure to also read the glowing review for the game from RPGFan’s own Aleks Franiczek.
