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 GamesRadar+ 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.
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