For an intricate RPG filled with space tales ranging from transhumanism to the perils of the gig economy, I wasn’t expecting a humble bar to deliver one of Citizen Sleeper’s most touching storylines. 

In Citizen Sleeper, the Erlin’s Eye station is home to a multitude of stories to unravel. You meet a mercenary in need of scraps to repair the hull of her ship. A promise of revenge for an engineer leads you to hack people and retrieve data while exposing yourself to the network’s watchers. A researcher might ask you to retrieve a rare mushroom for their studies; a chef might challenge you to prepare a cozy meal that only a handful of lucky clients get to try.

But the one that stuck with me the most involved the Overlook Bar. In Citizen Sleeper, each day is presented as a "cycle," with actions taking a specific amount of time. I spent a few cycles drinking at the bar in hopes of becoming a regular. Gaining the owner's notice means that you eventually get to work shifts on the other side of the counter. As the game warns you, the pay isn't great, but the occasional tips make up for it.

While most of these storylines are optional, you never know when spending time in the right place (or with the right person) will get you closer to the main objectives of the game. You play as a Sleeper, a being of robotic body and (emulated) human mind. However, you're being hunted by an unknown enemy while desperately searching for stabilizers for your  body, which aren't exactly cheap. Securing a gig—regardless of the conditions—is a top priority during the first few hours of your adventure.

The genius of Citizen Sleeper isn't solely in how it organically presents these scenarios, but also in the humane interactions that await if you decide to stick around. For Tala, the owner of the Overlook, I wasn't just another regular—I was the person who helped her to achieve a lifelong dream of making the bar special.

After I ventured outside of the space station's limits to retrieve some peculiar spores for Tala, she was able to start growing her own mushrooms, eventually starting a distillery of her own. As the two of you add some finishing touches to the mix, she commiserates about the origins of the Overlook. It started as an attempt by her father to make a life for Tala and her brother when they first got to Erlin's Eye. Now, she's not only honoring his memory, but looking ahead with her own vision in mind.

In many traditional RPGs, you're constantly allured by the promise of spectacle off the central narrative path. A similar feeling can be found in Citizen Sleeper. Helping a certain mercenary leads to a hunt for a partner who abandoned her, while your assistance to an engineer can turn sideways if you back the wrong person along the way. Those complex sci-fi beats fit Citizen Sleeper well. But the Overlook Bar's storyline is an example of the importance of elevating the voices of everyday people. It's an example of how the familiar struggles resonate the most, even when juxtaposed with neon bright skylines and future tech.

Lending Tala a hand granted me in-game benefits. Along with the shifts, I could now use the bar as a shelter, thanks to a modest but serviceable kitchen in the back. But for me, the biggest reward was a sense of hope. After spending cycle upon cycle fighting tooth and nail to earn a place in the hostile space station, helping the Overlook taught me that even in a dystopian future, it's always worth sticking around.

You can find Citizen Sleeper on Epic Games Store now.