Citizen Sleeper: How to Escape Dystopia

Citizen Sleeper asks you to decide if escape is possible.
It took several minutes of impasse and tears and not touching my controller, for fear of making a decision before I was ready, for me to know what I thought about that question. Citizen Sleeper gives you several potential answers and in the ones that resonated with me was the kind of deep personal freedom you only find, sure enough, through community.
Citizen Sleeper is about disability and body dysmorphia and the inevitability of corruption, and it is about the things the grow among and around those things. The antidotes and the byproducts.
Citizen Sleeper is about collections of people: families, gangs, unions, neighborhoods, corporations, and communes. It is about the individuals that make them up and how their individual needs strengthen or threaten the collective. But for our purposes today, it is about place. Yes the whole of its corporate, colonized space, but also...the aging space station its story takes place on: Erlin's Eye.
The Eye is not exactly a welcoming home, but for a sleeper it is, in many ways, better than what they've come from. In the world of Citizen Sleeper, AI has been outlawed. So as a way of getting around that, the company Essen-Arp pays regular people to emulate their consciousness. It's a way to skirt the rules, but it also relies on there being people desperate enough to participate. These people are asleep in some kind of corporate facility, and their emulated consciousness is downloaded into a constructed body called a Frame. This new person is called a Sleeper, though many in this world would take issue with my calling them a "person." These Sleepers are forced to do some sort of labor for some period of time and when that time is up, the Frame is deactivated, the person whose consciousness they were made from wakes up, and that person gets paid for the work their Sleeper did.
As you might imagine, the Sleeper, an emulated human personality living inside a constructed body and being forced to work their entire life only to benefit another person, might have feelings about this arrangement. So Essen-Arp makes sure that if the Sleeper ever escapes, their Frame, their body, will begin to destabilize. It will break down at an accelerated rate. Death will always come for the Sleeper, either through violence or planned obsolescence.
And this is where the game places you at the start. You are an escaped Sleeper, nearly frozen in a cargo container, just trying to survive long enough to make it to Erlin's Eye. You're not sure where you'll go after that, but you know... well you hope there will be options when you get there.
0:00 - Content Warnings
0:45 - Is escape possible?
3:34 - Why Citizen Sleeper hit me this hard
6:55 - Who does YOUR body belong to?
9:26 - Citizen Sleeper's characters
16:12 - The body is not the self
20:42 - Content Warning: Body feelings
22:34 - Who do YOU belong to?
27:00 - Lem & Mina: An uncertain future
40:27 - Content Warning: Death and grief
42:01 - Where do you BELONG?
44:02 - Getting to know Emphis
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[@MattHorton]

What ending did you get?

[@Vide0Attack]

I actually never got an ending, which I think is kind of fascinating. All of the endings currently in the game have an "out" for the station but you can also decide that none of these endings are for you. I've done everything there is to do in the game but have ultimately decided my sleeper's place is on the station.

[@MattHorton]

I technically did 3 endings this way

[@egirlSkeletor]

My first time through i took the gardener's offer. As a trans person trapped in a body i often feel disconnected from and with a brain not especially suited to the world I find myself in, that particular type of escape and freedom was like a dream. Now I'm playing again, and I'm not so sure. I remember asking the navigator if the killer protocol was suffering after trapping it, i remember navigator's answer, and i wonder if a fate so strange and alien is the one i really want.

[@MattHorton]

@@egirlSkeletor love from me, friendlySkeletor.

[@Miss_Functional]

My sleeper went through every ending deciding to stay on the station. It just felt like home

[@bean5350]

I find it sad that so much of the beautiful, heartfelt and love-filled content on the internet gets burried under tonnes upuon tonnes of rubble. The engagement you get speaks for itself with how well crafted these videos are, even if they don't exactly get as many views as I think they should. Such a beautiful video.

[@MattHorton]

Thanks!

[@MattHorton]

Tell your friends!

[@admiralsnackbar]

Stellar, insightful, and emotional. The game is fantastic, too! Thank you for putting this together, Citizen Sleeper is a phenomenal experience and sharing your own path through it reveals much about yourself.

[@MattHorton]

Thank you

[@kacperolak6859]

i missed the Lem's and Mina's follow up drive where you met Castor and i redicovered it when i thought there is nothing more on the Eye while visiting old friend in the bay so, i pretty much had nothing else to do in the downtimes other than stocking scrap and stabilazers for the trip. i've gathered resources that would let me survive for some 300 cycles, but in the end i decided to stay at the Hypha Commune. it felt great burning all my dices to get that 0 energy knowing it helps the community grow

[@MattHorton]

Right?

[@Drewface14]

Thanks for sharing. This was a good video. Hope you find a good place that makes you and your husband happy and feel comfortable.

[@MattHorton]

Thanks. Working on it

[@gunk7071]

This video was so beautiful to sit through citizen sleeper is such an amazing and tragic and heartfelt game that I've been obsessed with recently and have been diving through content for and I was so surprised to see roads that I recognized it was really weird! It was so refreshing hearing the things you had to say about oklahoma and you're experience and playthrough of citizen sleeper were beautifully written I'm glad I found this video and cant wait to see more of your content

[@MattHorton]

Thank you so much! I'm glad it resonated with you

[@davidmaksymyshyn3603]

This was an amazing video. Incredibly undderated channel and game.

[@MattHorton]

Thank you! Tell your friends

[@Owyss]

This deserve more view! I only picked this up in 2024 from Nintendo Store Sale! I believe more players will get to see this when CS 2 launches!

[@MattHorton]

Thanks! Hope you enjoyed the game. I'm thrilled for CS 2

[@Vide0Attack]

Excellent video! You really articulated a lot of the things I loved about the game- particularly how success in Citizen Sleeper is more about getting to the know the station. It's always work, but you can make the work faster and more efficient. Even then it just takes one big purchase or threat to drain most of your money.

[@MattHorton]

Yes exactly. Thank you for the love

[@drewj12]

This was such a beautiful video. Really loved how delicately and thoughtfully woven the game was with the personal. I’ve subscribed so that whenever you make the next video, at whatever pace you want to, I’ll get notified.

[@MattHorton]

Thank you! How did you find it? I'm noticing an uptick in traffic and trying to figure it out 😅

[@austinbond2527]

I adored this game, and thankfully it’s still going through the DLC. Great video!

[@MattHorton]

Thanks!

[@matthewsmith3322]

I'm only 4 minutes in and I can already tell this is going to be a great video.

[@MattHorton]

Thanks!

[@Rightchickenwing]

I'm a few mins into your vid, not heard of this game but it's definitely appealing! Thanks for covering this game 😀🤛

[@MattHorton]

Absolutely

[@wanderingfIame]

absolutely loved this video!

[@MattHorton]

Absolutely love this comment!

[@exoticloudent7564]

This was amazing

[@MattHorton]

Thanks!

[@joyfulfishman5445]

Such a beautiful game

[@Jp808]

God this was my GOTY last year i loved it

[@MattHorton]

Yes

[@awesomepork101]

Shame this vid didn’t explode, it really should of with the quality

[@MattHorton]

You're here! And hey it did better than a lot of my videos. Share it if you liked it!

[@prototypelq8574]

I`ve played for the game for about 4 hours, it was a great experience, and I can safely say I hate Feng. He seems like a nice and friendly guy, however he doesn not follow thorough on his promises at all. Feng asks, and asks and asks of Sleeper to risk getting themselves caught by the Hunter, by the bounty hunters, he asks to work a job without getting any pay for him, and he Has Not Made Good on his promise yet. I vouched for the guy, I helped him out, I kept helping him out, but he didn`t help me even once. I decided to keep away from him, and in desperation (and stupid hope for kindness) helped out Ethan instead, though he was not very subtle about his assholish nature and you can guess how well that turned out. At least Ethan had the forwardness to say his motivations out loud, while Feng pretends to be a friend, while only the Sleeper risks their life for his stupid curiosity. At the moment I stopped, my Sleeper seemed to be doing okay, I`ll keep doing other character`s quests. If they ran out, or if I Have to rely on lying looser Feng again, maybe I`ll return to his quest, otherwise the bastard is on his own. The game is really good at making you experience emotion like that, even if the emotion is the feeling of betrayal and anger towards Feng. Also Dragos might not have had the Sleeper`s back the moment his own might be under pressure, he still saved the Sleeper and gave them a chance. I can, at least, understand his decision to ask the Sleeper to go away (unlike Feng who waves his promise to help the sleeper in their face like a dangling carrot while they are hunted for their life)

[@MattHorton]

Yeah. Like I said in the video, I did feel strung along. That's a valid thing to feel. That said, he does come through in the end. And shows up for you in the DLC too.

[@sixmonthgaze135]

35:26 my half an hour decision was the end of hypha storyline

[@MattHorton]

Yeah. That's a really wonderful moment

[@Drag0n647]

12:51 but in the end. To add on 15:12 if you found the cat then you should know this game is wholesome at times. 39:32 39:32 so I went on the ship for the soul purpose of friendship or more even if I die at least I made friends along the way. 12:51 if you help him all the way you get to have drinks with him and no tracker.

[@MattHorton]

Yeah I didn't outline everything that happens but I know all that

[@Drag0n647]

@@MattHorton Oh good. Hopefully you make a video on the second one when it comes out.

[@MattHorton]

@@Drag0n647 honestly I want to!

[@Drag0n647]

@@MattHorton SAME

[@Rightchickenwing]

What platforms are this on mate? I think I would like to check out gameplay, not sure if you will be showing just gameplay a style of essay combined with background gameplay 🤛🤛

[@MattHorton]

I pulled a lot of game play from youtube but ended up playing over again for the video. It's on switch xbox pc and Mac. Not sure about Playstation but probably

[@themaestrodihoc]

Space Structures better than SteelsFrames of buildingsGroups

[@MattHorton]

Ok

[@jamesverner9132]

This is not a 'Leftist' game it is a game for everyone. Anyone can enjoy it and EVERYONE should enjoy it.

[@MattHorton]

I don't want to speak for Gareth but they loved my video and have made it very clear how they were trying to get leftist points across. Art says things and has perspectives. It's OK and good that this game is making points from a leftist perspective. And diminishing that message by saying this nonsense is willful blindness.

[@jamesverner9132]

​@@MattHortoni don't understand you at all. I don't understand why "lets ALL have fun" is such a THREAT to you. Im not even mad, just confused. You sound petty and vindictive. It doesn't make sense to me?

[@MattHorton]

@@jamesverner9132 I'm not mad either. Just saying that the perspective this game has in the text is pretty objectively leftist. I didn't say someone that isn't a leftist couldn't enjoy it. But if you did I would push you to question why. In any case, my whole thing is doing critical analysis on games. Maybe that's not for you!

[@Drag0n647]

@@MattHorton Not gonna lie your right about it being a Leftist game. since only thing I was thinking after I went with go on the ship ending was wow this sounds like how America will be in the future.