How a lot have you ever modified over the previous couple of years? The passage of time continues, always, unremittingly. We’re all getting older, and time’s arrow marches on. It is… inevitable. Not too long ago, I had the chance to sit down down with Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector’s lead dev Gareth Damian Martin, after taking part in among the upcoming sequel. In case you could not inform, and thought I used to be simply being introspective, in Citizen Sleeper 2, the passage of time is essential.
Take Bliss, for instance. Bliss is a personality you may meet within the first Citizen Sleeper, they usually’re again within the sequel. These of you that met them within the first sport may keep in mind that, at that time limit, they used she/her pronouns. However now, an indeterminate period of time later, they’ve realised they’re non-binary.
In Citizen Sleeper 2, once you meet Bliss, they provide that will help you out. Followers loved their presence, however this resurfacing is about greater than merely jingling keys for gamers of the primary sport. For Martin, Bliss offered “a possibility to have this kind-of second of solidarity, and a enjoyable dialogue between a non-binary particular person and a Sleeper about their experiences; one thing that I am making an attempt to deliver to the Forefront.”
While you make any sport (notably one the place you are serving as the only author), it may be tough to gauge how individuals may reply to it. After the runaway success of the primary sport, for Martin, Citizen Sleeper 2 was about making narratives about gender id and different marginalized traits extra concrete, and extra than simply metaphors.
“In Citizen Sleeper, it is a huge a part of the sport as a result of it is the place I wrote from, however placing it out on the earth and having individuals react to it permits me to then have a look at all the pieces in a extra intentional means and go, ‘okay, I have to guarantee that’s nonetheless a part of the sport’.
“One of many readings of Citizen Sleeper that I did not like to see was the place individuals had been behaving prefer it was a type of science fiction tales; the place you do one thing such as you change an entire group of minoritized individuals with a metaphor. I actually did not need that to be Citizen Sleeper, and so I am like, ‘okay, no, however there are trans and non-binary individuals within the Citizen Sleeper universe.'”
With these express modifications to the world-building got here modifications to in-world come mechanics, too. I wrote about this in my preview of the sport, however Starward Vector works fairly in a different way from its predecessor. Totally different lessons have totally different strengths and weaknesses, some having abilities they cannot use in any respect. The sport’s important mechanic is actually rolling cube – of which you will have six you need to use each cycle – however if you happen to try one thing that you just aren’t expert in, you will extra possible get a detrimental end result.
Alongside that, although, you now must assemble a crew for various jobs you tackle, with totally different characters having their very own strengths that may make up for what you lack. However on account of this balancing act, varied NPCs can find yourself residing to serve you, with no autonomy of their very own. To fight this, Martin has tried to offer varied characters their very own sense of company.
“[Citizen Sleeper is] not about, ‘oh yeah, you are the captain. That is your crew.’ While you arrive at a location, they usually go off and do their very own factor since you do not management them. That is particularly humorous once you arrive at locations and Serafin’s like ‘I’ve bought one thing I have to do and the factor is you may’t fly the ship’. So that you simply must cope with the truth that Serafin’s off doing one thing. An enormous core a part of Citizen Sleeper 1 was the sensation that the characters have lots of company, they usually’re not simply instruments so that you can transfer round.”
This is not Dragon’s Dogma, the place you may resolve how your pawns look and work, no: in Starward Vector, every crew member you tackle a job has their very own cube you may roll, however if you happen to attempt to make them do one thing they don’t seem to be good at (or do not wish to do) you may anticipate to listen to their suggestions. Little issues like this actually assist deliver the characters to life, as in the event that they actually have their very own needs and wishes, one thing that may be fairly tough to do in a sport with out movement seize, or actors to ship their strains.
Martin explains that they put lots of thought into the methods somebody may react to sure conditions, citing a personality you meet early on within the sport, Yujin, who finally ends up probably inflicting a little bit of hassle for you in your first job. “You’ve these enjoyable moments the place it is like ‘oh yeah I get to pay that off’ and it will get to have a development as a result of these persons are round you much more… My writing course of may be very very similar to that of a [TTRPG Dungeon Master]. I write a bit, however go away myself lots of unfastened ends.”
Citizen Sleeper is not nearly its characters, although. There’s additionally the world they stay in. The primary sport was set solely on one area station, The Eye, with Martin noting how they love tales about “one time and one metropolis” however Starward Vector’s setting may be very totally different. Primarily as a result of it would not have only one area station to go to, however many. One of many essentially the most lauded issues in regards to the first sport was the way in which by which the world was constructed up, with small bits of flavour textual content permitting you to construct a vivid picture of what The Eye appears to be like like.
Starward Vector, in flip, takes the micro and makes it macro – filling the world with particulars that make these star programs residing, respiratory locations. Martin spoke to me of their time designing the ecosystem of their first sport, In Different Waters, and the way in which they’d to consider issues like whether or not there’s daylight in a sure space, and what that may imply for the biology of sure creatures there. This line of considering carries by means of to Starward Vector.
“We’re in an asteroid belt on the fringe of a photo voltaic system. The place do individuals get water? Properly, okay, to illustrate that there is like an ice asteroid that is being mined… Okay, they have that. Then you definately map it and you are like ‘okay, nicely these locations get water from right here, however we want someplace to get meals’ and you then’re like ‘what leftover items of company tech may need been round’.”
You’ll be able to actually really feel the fervour for this world coming by means of from Martin, sat in the identical room with them, watching them envision this entire world that they’ve created. All of these items matter, in spite of everything, as whereas all these programs may be one thing mundane inside the world of Citizen Sleeper, they’re additionally crucial, and inform why these characters’ lives are the way in which that they’re. There’s a struggle occurring within the background of Starward Vector, too – one which I wasn’t in a position to really feel the total influence of in my time with the sport, however one I am curious to see explored additional.
That side of the sport is one thing that is fairly actual for Martin, too. Their companion is Romanian, from a rustic that borders Ukraine, and continues to be being impacted by Russia’s on-going invasion that began in 2022 (the 12 months the primary Citizen Sleeper launched, by the way).
“I’ve spent lots of time going to Romania and seeing how the struggle in Ukraine has affected Romania,” they clarify. “Romania is on the Black Sea, so mines wash up on the seashores within the Black Sea and it is this attention-grabbing relationship to a struggle, as a result of it is generally making use of lots of stress and, different occasions, it is prefer it’s virtually not taking place. It is totally different for various individuals. There’s this actually attention-grabbing texture that I discovered fascinating and actually pertains to the theme of disaster, and that is actually essential to the sport. It is a huge affect on how I take into consideration the belt in CS2 as being on the ‘shore of struggle’.”
Mortality, and your relationship to your physique, and the way it exists in bodily area – these are all themes which might be integral to the DNA of the primary sport. They usually’re current once more in Starward Vector, too, directly once more on the forefront of Martin’s thoughts since they’ve endured two surgical procedures previously 12 months.
For Martin, giving your physique over to another person to take care of appears like “an uncommon factor” that “you do as a result of they’re goal, they usually have this goal place of your physique as an object which you can by no means do.” It was this thought course of that led Martin to suppose rather a lot about “well being anxiousness and the way our our bodies will be terrifying, we are able to have moments and psychological results on our our bodies. I expertise melancholy as a really bodily factor, and I get a number of random pains, and I do know they do not exist.”
However it appears like lots of these concepts might have been explored in DLC, or by way of expansions, or add-ons. Why do the entire means and make a full sequel? I requested Maritn.
“In a means, releasing [Citizen Sleeper] into the world and seeing individuals replicate on it, I used to be like, ‘oh, there’s all of those sides to Sleepers which might be actually cool and attention-grabbing, and I might like to discover these extra’. Citizen Sleeper was an experiment, and I [wanted to] hold it small and tight. ‘Let’s not go loopy’. I made it in two years, put it on the world to see if it really works, and it did.”
Citizen Sleeper ended up receiving three items of DLC, which let Martin discover explicit tales that felt essential for them to inform, however there was nonetheless extra ion the proverbial tank.
“I’ve nonetheless bought a lot stuff I wish to do, however I can not inform any extra of those tales as a result of I want extra programs. I wish to try to push issues and pull issues… [and] totally work by means of a number of emotions about being extra acutely aware of what Sleepers signify, after which making an attempt to truly interact with {that a} bit extra.”
On high of that, there’s the easy indisputable fact that nobody was making this actual form of sport – the place you construct a crew and go on adventures – in fairly the precise means that Martin needed, so for them it was additionally about making the sport they wished they may play.
“I am gonna take the entire issues I take into consideration this style, and I will do my imaginative and prescient of it and no less than I do know I’ll have marked that off. In the identical means that after I made In Different Waters; that was me making a Metroid sport, regardless that that sport would not actually resemble a Metroid sport… so that is my response to Mass Impact 2. It is probably not the identical as Mass Impact 2, however that is the entire level. The entire level is it form of exists in the entire gaps that Mass Impact 2 has.”
Citizen Sleeper comes from Martin’s coronary heart. Placing the primary sport on the market allow them to take into consideration this world, and this sport, extra broadly. “I needed to write down about being a human,” they are saying. “And I made a robotic to do this, as a result of we’re usually not allowed, or permitted, to write down about our bodies in a sure means, as a result of our bodies aren’t alleged to be in query in fiction. Particularly not in video games.”
A part of what resonated with me after I performed the primary sport had been these meditations on how our bodies exist, how they navigate sure areas, how they endure life occasions, how they age, how they develop, how they decay. Whereas Starward Vector places me within the sneakers of a brand new Sleeper, their physique continues to be one thing they’ve to determine, too, and primarily based on my dialog with Martin, I am fairly assured I will come away from it with loads of contemporary concepts about how I exist within the area I occupy, too.
And that is the purpose of artwork, proper?