Citizen Sleeper (Video Game, 2022)
In Citizen Sleeper, you play as a Sleeper—a human whose consciousness has been digitized and placed into a synthetic body owned by the mega-corporation Essen-Arp.
Having escaped corporate servitude aboard a freighter, the Sleeper finds refuge on a massive space station known as the Eye, a place filled with danger, opportunity, and competing factions. Here, survival and freedom are hard-won prizes, and every decision shapes the future.
The Eye and Its Factions
Once owned by the Solheim Corporation, the Eye was abandoned after Solheim’s collapse decades earlier. Left in chaos, the station eventually fell under the control of Havenage, a powerful trade union, and Yatagan, a ruthless criminal syndicate.
The story begins when the Sleeper is discovered by Dragos, a scrap merchant who offers shelter in an old shipping container in exchange for labor. However, fearing retaliation from Essen-Arp, Dragos soon cuts ties, leaving the Sleeper to fend for themselves—and to carve out their own destiny among the Eye’s inhabitants.
Sabine and Yatagan
The Sleeper’s synthetic body is designed to degrade over time, a built-in form of planned obsolescence that requires a chemical stabilizer produced only by Essen-Arp. In search of a way to survive, the Sleeper meets Sabine, a doctor affiliated with Yatagan. Sabine acquires the stabilizer through criminal channels but charges an exorbitant price.
Eventually, Sabine disappears, leaving behind a message and a key that leads the Sleeper to their private quarters. There, Sabine reveals their plan to escape Yatagan and asks for the Sleeper’s help. By hacking Yatagan agents’ implants, the Sleeper and Sabine uncover evidence that Yannick, Yatagan’s leader, is transmitting data from his people’s cybernetic implants to a mysterious corporate partner.
Sabine fails to meet the Sleeper at their next rendezvous. Instead, the Sleeper encounters Rabiah, a Yatagan enforcer, who claims Sabine once worked for Essen-Arp and cannot be trusted. Rabiah offers the Sleeper a chance to join Yatagan, framing the syndicate as less monstrous than Sabine suggests.
When Sabine and Rabiah later confront each other, the truth emerges: Sabine really was an Essen-Arp scientist—but a whistleblower who opposed the Sleeper project. Together, they expose Yannick’s corporate ties. When the Sleeper infiltrates Yannick’s office, they discover he’s already dead—his body remotely controlled through a neural implant. In the aftermath, Sabine gives the Sleeper several doses of stabilizer but warns that the supply line is gone for good.
Feng and Havenage
Another path introduces Feng, a cybersecurity specialist within Havenage. He discovers the Sleeper’s body carries a tracker that Essen-Arp could use to reclaim them. In exchange for help investigating corruption inside Havenage, Feng offers to disable it.
Through the data the Sleeper gathers, Feng learns that Hardin, one of Havenage’s senior leaders, is actually a disgraced ex-Solheim executive responsible for the exploitation of workers—including Feng’s own parents. After failing to publicly expose Hardin, Feng goes underground, continuing his work in secret.
Eventually, Feng and the Sleeper uncover Hardin’s plan to sell the Eye to another corporation, Conway, for scrap. They hack into a meeting between Hardin and Conway’s representative, broadcasting his betrayal to the entire station. Hardin is disgraced, Feng is reinstated, and the Sleeper’s tracker is finally removed.
Ethan and Maywick
If the Sleeper hasn’t yet disabled their tracker, it leads Ethan, a washed-up bounty hunter employed by Essen-Arp, straight to them. Ethan agrees to let the Sleeper live—if they pay his bar tabs. Later, Essen-Arp replaces him with Maywick, a far more dangerous mercenary. Ethan warns the Sleeper and offers protection if they help him settle his debts.
If the tracker remains active, Ethan betrays the Sleeper to save himself. Maywick kills Ethan, forcing the Sleeper to fight back and kill Maywick in self-defense. If the tracker is removed in time, however, Maywick never arrives, and Ethan quietly leaves the station, believing the Sleeper dead.
Lem and Mina
In the shipyard, the Sleeper befriends Lem, a weary worker caring for a young girl named Mina. Lem dreams of escaping the Eye aboard the Sidereal Horizon, a generation ship promising a fresh start to those who help build it. The Sleeper often babysits Mina, and the two form a close bond.
When the Horizon is completed, only Havenage’s senior members receive tickets. Desperate, Lem loses hope—until a data broker named Castor offers to forge passage for Lem, Mina, and the Sleeper in exchange for espionage aboard the ship.
This storyline offers multiple endings:
- The Sleeper can refuse Castor’s offer, staying behind.
- Accept and hide the tickets, escaping alone.
- Give Lem and Mina the tickets, letting them leave without the Sleeper.
- Or depart with them aboard the Horizon.
If the Sleeper joins them, their body eventually deteriorates during the voyage. Lem dies en route, but Mina lives on to reach the ship’s destination.
Ankhita
The Sleeper also encounters Ankhita, a battle-hardened mercenary seeking repairs for her ship. Together they track down her traitorous crewmate Ashton, who stole the ship’s AI “shipmind” to preserve another dying Sleeper’s consciousness. The confrontation ends violently—Ankhita kills both Ashton and the dying Sleeper, filled with guilt. She pays the Sleeper for their help but offers them a moral choice: take or refuse the blood money.
Later, Ankhita decides to abandon mercenary life. She hires Bliss, a mechanic, to de-arm her warship and invites the Sleeper to join her crew. If they accept, the game concludes with their departure; if not, the Sleeper remains behind to help Bliss’s partner Mortiz run the repair business.
Navigator, Hunter, and Killer
While exploring the Eye’s digital systems, the Sleeper encounters Hunter, an aggressive AI designed to eliminate rogue artificial intelligences. Every few hacking attempts, Hunter attacks and damages the Sleeper’s system.
In a derelict vending machine, the Sleeper finds another AI hiding from Hunter. It explains that Hunter is merely a subordinate of Killer, a greater AI responsible for erasing self-aware programs. The Sleeper helps the hidden AI trick Hunter into targeting itself for deletion, exploiting a paradox in Hunter’s code that traps it in an infinite loop.
Freed, the AI reveals its name—Navigator—a former shipmind. Navigator warns that Killer remains at large. Together, they track Killer to the Eye’s mainframe, where it has degraded into a chaotic, half-blind entity. The Sleeper can choose to destroy or isolate Killer, freeing the station’s digital realm.
As thanks, Navigator grants access to the Greenway, a mysterious and organic section of the Eye’s network. Inside, the Sleeper meets Gardener, an AI that has merged the minds of the station’s flora into a collective consciousness. Gardener offers the Sleeper the chance to join this hive mind permanently by severing their link to the physical world—an invitation that, if accepted, becomes one of the game’s possible endings.
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