Citizen Sleeper 2 will pull a Mass Effect 2 and let you bring your favorite crewmates on missions purely for the plot, "most effective squad" be damned

Garrus Vakarian, a Turian sniper from Mass Effect 1, 2, and 3
(Image credit: EA)

Citizen Sleeper 2 will feature recruitable NPCs that can be enlisted to your squad as you take on various contracts, and much like in Mass Effect 2, different party combinations can result in rewarding character interactions.

"I don't know how you played Mass Effect 2, but I was always like, 'I will take my friends on every mission.' I'm not gonna choose the most effective combat squad. I just like those guys," creator Gareth Damian Martin told 12DOVE hours before presenting an award at The Golden Joysticks 2024. "Or I might be like, 'Oh, it will be interesting to take this person to this place, because I think they'd have an interesting reaction.' And so trying to think about it like that."

Companions are key in so many of the best RPGs, from Baldur's Gate 3 to the Mass Effect trilogy Martin referenced. But this change to the established formula of Citizen Sleeper is just one way that Martin aims to hone in on the sequel's TTRPG roots, styling, and ethos. "It gives the player a really interesting expressive space to be able to be like, 'well, I like this person and this person, I'm going to take them on contracts with me,' and that means I can then surface scenes with those characters in those moments that try to reward the player for making those choices."

We've known for some time that Citizen Sleeper 2 will be implementing a party-based squad recruitment system, but that these moments feed into emergent storytelling in the vein of a Bioware game is a huge draw for Martin – and also, most likely, for players.

"In Citizen Sleeper 1, it's like all the characters you meet, they're part of a story, and that kind of means that I want you to keep going with that story," they explained. "But because each crew member in Citizen Sleeper [2] does have their own story, you can also not like them, and you can say, like, 'No, I don't want you on my crew.' Quite a few of them also have complications," Martin hints, and players have the option to outright reject and remove crewmates if they cross a boundary. "I think that's a really fun space to be able to open up, because it allows for actually more expression of the player character," they finish up.

It sounds like Martin is doubling down on the player choice elements, and I'm ready to find my new space sweetheart – aka Garrus 2.0 – in Citizen Sleeper 2 when the RPG launches on January 31, 2025.


Check out all the upcoming PC games to look forward to, from Avowed to Assassin's Creed Shadows

TOPICS
Jasmine Gould-Wilson
Staff Writer, 12DOVE

Jasmine is a staff writer at 12DOVE. Raised in Hong Kong and having graduated with an English Literature degree from Queen Mary, University of London in 2017, her passion for entertainment writing has taken her from reviewing underground concerts to blogging about the intersection between horror movies and browser games. Having made the career jump from TV broadcast operations to video games journalism during the pandemic, she cut her teeth as a freelance writer with TheGamer, Gamezo, and Tech Radar Gaming before accepting a full-time role here at GamesRadar. Whether Jasmine is researching the latest in gaming litigation for a news piece, writing how-to guides for The Sims 4, or extolling the necessity of a Resident Evil: CODE Veronica remake, you'll probably find her listening to metalcore at the same time.

Read more
Citizen Sleeper 2
Citizen Sleeper 2 will be the last videogame in the series, while its dev focuses on making a "Citizen Sleeper tabletop game in full"
Citizen Sleeper 2
Citizen Sleeper 2 is doubling down on the RPG's tabletop roots, and the new push system already has me sweating
Avowed screenshot of Kai, a companion, waiting at the dock in Dawnshore
Avowed's companion system is giving me strong Mass Effect vibes – and not only because of Kai
Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector key art featuring a sleeper floating with nearby cat
Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector review – "A smart sequel that takes everything that worked from the stellar original and expands"
Mass Effect 2 - Garrus
Games like Mass Effect to get swept up in
Avowed screenshot showing two companions assisting in combat
Avowed director didn't add romance as RPG players often try to cheese companion relationships and she wanted them to "feel natural"
Latest in RPG
Pillars of Eternity
10 years later, in a post-Baldur's Gate 3 and Avowed world, Obsidian is giving its own throwback CRPG Pillars of Eternity a turn-based combat mode
Kingdom Come Deliverance 2
Reclaiming their crown, pacifist Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 player beats the whole RPG as "Merciful Henry": 1,741 strikes blocked, 472 knockouts, and zero kills
Top-down screenshot of Monsterpatch, showing a grid-based town with Pokemon-like creatures, GBC graphics and vegetations sprinkled about.
This cozy RPG promises a Pokemon and Stardew Valley mashup with "limitless customization," 208 monsters, and more, so no wonder its Kickstarter was funded in just 16 minutes
Dragon Age: The Veilguard art showing the RPG's companions grouped together
Dragon Age: The Veilguard director is leading an unannounced game for Wizards of the Coast, which recently hinted at more Baldur's Gate
A large, muscly bloke eating noodles at a bar while two people point pistols at him from behind in Cyberpunk 2077.
The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 developer enters into partnership with Pokemon Go owner to create a new game "set within one of CD Projekt's IPs"
The Witcher 4 screenshot with Ciri using sword and sorcery to fight an ancient monster
The Witcher 4 and Naughty Dog's Intergalactic are reportedly skipping 2026 and won't be ready until at least the year after
Latest in News
Pillars of Eternity
10 years later, in a post-Baldur's Gate 3 and Avowed world, Obsidian is giving its own throwback CRPG Pillars of Eternity a turn-based combat mode
Destiny 2 Lightfall
When Destiny 2 "weekly active users dropped lower and faster than we'd seen since 2018," Bungie assembled an A-Team to put out some fires: "We needed to do something"
Velma, Daphne, Fred, Shaggy, and Scooby-Doo looking at a giant key which is also a clue
Netflix is rebooting Scooby-Doo as a live-action series from the producer of Supergirl and The Flash centered around a "supernatural murder" at a summer camp
Astro Bot
Astro Bot went through 23 pitch iterations before its director promised PlayStation "happy gameplay" and "overflowing charm," though it did once end with robot decapitation that made "some people really upset"
Tomb Raider
5 years after Avengers, 2 years after its last layoffs, and who knows how long before Perfect Dark and Tomb Raider return, Crystal Dynamics announces another round of layoffs
AI Limit
"AI is not as effective as it might appear": Dev of AI-focused Soulslike RPG says they didn't use any AI-generated content and it can't match "genuine creativity"