Date Everything review: "A masterclass in character design full of wonderful faces I love meeting, but juggling so many means sacrificing depth"

I'll always appreciate the simplicity of a video game title like Date Everything that does what it says on the tin. In this debut romance from Sassy Chap Games you really do date just about everything you can set your peepers on, and with 100 'dateables' to meet, all within your household and all fully voiced, that frequently is more than you'd expect. Handsome himbos hide in the closet, bickering besties are a door away, and drama is afoot in the laundry room. Meeting a new character is always a joyous surprise, even if at times it can bend under the weight of the sheer ambition juggling 100 characters is always going to demand.

Just how are you doing so much dating in a single household? Simple – they are, for the most part, the objects around your house made real. After losing your job to AI, you're sent the company's latest in-development wearable tech: the Dateviators – sunglasses that allow you to DATE (Directly Acknowledge a Thing's Existence) anything you see. From objects themselves – chairs, fridges, shelves – to more abstract concepts – water, air, dread – you can meet and grow closer to these characters to strike up friendships… and maybe more.

House bound

With a freeform structure, your goal is mostly what you want to make it, revolving around exploring your house in three-dimensions and getting to better know whatever catches your eye. Each character has a little storyline to follow as you get to know them, bestowing you SPEC stat points (think Persona 5) once you've reached a relationship milestone with them, which in turn allow you to choose new dialogue branches and even, later on, help resolve characters' problems and enable them to have closure with their own ending sequences.

Friendship, Love, or Hate – all the options will net you those sweet, sweet points. It's mostly up to you what you gun for, though as satisfying as it is to end up hated by your extremely suspect dishwasher who refuses to stop pestering you about connecting to the internet to unlock more features, Hate can also be a sort of 'lose' condition if you rub a character the wrong way. It'll stop you from being able to resolve their ending, though a limited candy resource you can nab later on does allow you some wriggle room in getting to turn hatred back into friendship.

With 100 characters to juggle, a game like Date Everything is only going to be able to get so deep with some of them. Each player is bound to have their own favorites, but I enjoyed the stories the most that lean into the community aspect of the household at large, lapping up the surprising drama that comes from the interactions all these seemingly mundane elements have with one another. It makes the world feel alive.

The washer and dryer, Washford and Drysdale, used to be an item, but their relationship has been on the rocks, for instance. Or Friar Errol, the air fryer who drives the rest of the kitchen up the wall (sorry, Wall, the stoic wall) preaching the good word of the oil-free kitchen appliance. Or the on-again-off-again lovers Harper, the clothes hamper, and Dirk, your dirty clothes who scurries away once cleaned. For me, Date Everything is at its best when it makes the world of the Dateables feel like a hidden second world that already has its own dynamics you're only now privy to.

I also like how some storylines lean into the fact you're walking around a house – Bobby Pin, a, well, gangster loving bobbypin, searches the house for new places to run scams, meaning you have to track them down each time you want to talk again. But Date Everything really steals my heart when the storytelling leans into the abstract nature of the world beyond what you can see. Each visit to Eddie and Volt, the pair in charge of your house's electricity, sees you enter the Breaker Box Club where other Dateables gather to watch talent shows and sip on cocktails. It requires some use of my own imagination – the player is otherwise just staring into a cupboard – but I'm used to battle scenes playing out with the same handful of sword strike .gifs again and again in Fate/Stay Night so believe me I can manage. The idea of shoving yourself inexplicably into a nightclub in your closet is just wonderful.

But, as I mentioned, with so many characters some are just going to feel like they have more lightweight storylines. While some play out over the course of many interactions, others will only have one or two before they basically straight up ask if you want to bang or just be friends. While there are a few that seem to have more stringent Love conditions, a lot of the time you just follow through their story and then it's presented on a plate for you to choose.

There are other times where that lack of nuance can also frustrate. Make one ill-advised click or even misread the tone of a comment and you may be thrust onto the path of Hate with very little warning and no way to apologize, inelegantly off-ramped after feeling like you did nothing wrong. In at least one case too, where character storylines collided, I first met a character only to have them Hate me within seconds.

That compounds with the sense that though you constantly have a lot of choices of what to say in conversation, it often doesn't feel like what you say matters all too much. At one point a comment I thought would be jokey actually turned out to be very mean, but then I only received two equally mean options to respond with to follow up – railroaded on the path of Hate.

When you do have more of an actual choice, it's often between just being extremely nice or rude (or answering some trivia questions). With so many characters, it often feels like you talk to them the same way to get the same results – which may be why I prefer the extra depth that comes from the interpersonal drama. Date Everything is filled to the brim with content (yes, bring the hammers on me for using the c-word), easily taking at least 20 hours to see everything, but reflecting on the interaction, it can feel a bit shallow.

Where the heart is

At times interactions can also feel a bit fiddly. Some Dateables require you to talk to them again at specific times of day, but leave it too long and forget when and they'll refuse to chat. They'll remind you of the conditions, at least, but this uses up one of your chances to talk to them a day (you can have five conversations a day, and can only use one per Dateable) meaning you have to wait a full day to try again.

The same can be true on scavenger hunts – one having me track down missing animals but refusing to receive them until a day had passed. Or times where an object that has multiple conversation-starting points (every window, for instance, is one character) keeps asking me to try to talk to them in different areas, meaning I go through days just trying to find where the next proper event is. There's no time limit, so it's no big deal, but it can create situations that feel more like housework than a stay at home holiday.

It'd be easier to handle if there were some more quality of life perks to the UI. I wish it was clearer what Dateable you were looking at when aiming down sights to strike up a conversation, and it's always a bit of a pet peeve of mine when text-heavy games don't have text logs or the ability to auto-play – common features in most visual novels.

Yet, even though not all storylines are equal and the writing is hit and miss – the characters themselves are where Date Everything really shines. From flourishes to the character design to how they speak and what they're called, almost every Dateable in the hundred strong lineup (and there's more via DLC) is a hit, expertly riffing off the concept they're based on. I could spend paragraphs pointing out my favorites – some of whom I've already discussed – but every time you meet one it's impossible not to be smiling. The designs are just that charming.

There's Abel the table embodying the quiet strength of wood, with his old-timey cowboy-like mannerisms! Freddy the fridge Yeti who takes food safety very seriously and opens himself up to give you late night snacks! Your computer, Mac, who knows all your fanfic secrets and is desperate for an upgrade! Date Everything is a masterclass in character design, from the artwork to character motivations to the voice talent (just about everyone you've heard in something else is present here), it's always a delight to see how a household object or concept is brought to life.

Date Everything's characters might not always go too far beyond that initial wonder, though. Hugely ambitious though it is, how could many of the 100 characters feel like more than quick-if-delightful sketches? But it's also a testament to the strength of those designs that still, many do, and many of them will stick with you. Date Everything is far from perfect, but its cast of characters are well worth meeting at least once. And who knows? Sparks may fly.

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