Date Everything! Review (Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5 & PC)

I’m a sucker for a tongue-in-cheek romance that pairs witty humor with pop culture. But what I’m not so fond of, however, is egotistical lamps, beatboxing toilets, and pompous pianos that can’t hold a candle to a proper conversation. As it stands, I have a sworn enemy—an influencer, no less, who has an irritatingly flexible god complex that knows no bounds—and a date with a secondhand box of Christmas decorations. To add, I have a bromance brewing with a collection of coat hangars, a daily meetup with a coffee machine, and a lifelong dream to fulfill the wishes of an overtly enthusiastic globe that just so happens to hail from Newfoundland. I have absolutely no idea what is going on, but I’m all for it. Date Everything! said that I could befriend a treadmill, and it wasn’t lying. Part of me wishes it was, though.

I’d love to be able to describe Date Everything in a few words or so, but to be honest with you, it’s a game that you just sort of have to see with your own eyes to understand. True to the point of a bizarre dating sim, it doesn’t just grant you access to a trove of bad pick-up lines and smooth dialogue choices; it gives you the freedom to act on your strangest desires. Rather, it gives you a pair of magical sunglasses that allow you to see inanimate objects as real beings, and it tells you that, in order to find a purpose in your dead-end life, you must be willing to “awaken” the furniture and get to know each set piece, whether that means falling in love with the curtains—Curt and Rod, naturally—or finding an arch nemesis. It’s all incredibly weird, but that’s sort of the point.

While there is a thin plot behind Date Everything, it mostly focuses on the dating aspect. See, in the initial chapter you have a mundane job that drives you crazy—a customer service assistant, no less, that primarily involves answering questions from idiotic recipients. A few complaints, refunds, and pointless emails later, and the game opens up another doorway for you. A mysterious email hits your inbox, and before long you find yourself in possession of a pair of sunglasses. You pop them on, and then, without thinking twice about it, you begin activating objects around your home. The eccentric personalities jolt to life, and before long you find yourself on a quest for love, not as a charming individual, but as a fast-talking, desperate soul who happens to have a hundred suitors to sift through.

It goes like this: each day you receive five chances to win over or spoil the heart of a potential suitor. With a “heart”—a conversation, basically—you have a chance to unlock a small passage of dialogue with a character. Like a visual novel, each conversation has a series of dialogue choices that you can alternate between. And that’s essentially all that Date Everything consists of: talking to objects, and finding whatever opportunities you can to develop or dismantle a relationship. Is there a point to any of it? Not really, no — but it is a lot of fun to unwind to, weirdly, more so given the fact that every character has their own unique story, style, and voice actor.

Of course, the not knowing is what drives a game like Date Everything. As you never truly know who you will unlock with your replenished hearts, you always have something new to ponder. With a sizable home that is bursting with themed rooms and objects, you essentially have a speed dating circuit that allows you to romance not one person, but every single object in the world. And yes, you can romance more than one object. The bed—Betty, sorry—and I had something of an open relationship, and that was just the norm, apparently. Elsewhere, though, I had the freedom to practice my artistry with other characters, some of whom I hated, some of whom I didn’t mind sharing secrets with. Again, the whole pursuit was utterly ridiculous — yet I couldn’t help but flesh out the binder and decode the world. I had to identify the magnifying glass.

As “dating” is heavily influenced in Date Everything (go figure), there isn’t a lot else for you to do here. In fact, once you exhaust your daily hearts and check your chat bubbles for updates, the game more or less comes to a halt and prevents you from doing much else to help pass the time. You remove your magical sunglasses, interact with the bed, and then reawaken to the same objective: to find more objects, and to bulk out your portfolio of fledgling suitors. With that, you have a pretty straightforward gameplay loop that, frankly, doesn’t really transcend the usual boundaries. You win the favor of a lonely heart, and then move on to the next. Days will go by, and, if you’re lucky, once in a blue moon an email will usher the story forward via a message.

The heart of Date Everything is evidently rooted deep within its dialogue and its two-minute conversations. Given that every character has their own story, voice, and goals, the game itself pours most of its energy into providing a lot of small talk for you to work through. And honestly, it’s a lot of fun to carve out, too. The curtain rail, for example, has an awful habit of spying on pedestrians; the atlas has a dream of exploring the world and learning stories from vast cultures; the bed has a flirtatious spirit that can never be truly satisfied; and the toilet, weirdly, has a knack for barking rhymes at you under the pseudonyms of MC CRAPPER. The point is, there are hundreds of stories, all of which have a different meaning, outcome, and theme.

While Date Everything never left me on tenterhooks, it did give me something to look forward to. Although, at times, I did struggle to gel with it. I’d awaken to the same job, clash with objects that infuriated me, and then begin to question my progress and purpose in life. The cycle would repeat itself, and then I’d often hit a brick wall. Though, it was never a permanent issue; the fan, weirdly, would pull me back in and tell me that I had a lot more to do. She wasn’t wrong. I had a hundred more things to “do.”

Suffice it to say, Date Everything! is an incredibly odd game that pours its heart and soul into filling a niche. To my surprise, though, it is an enjoyable game that embraces its wackiness in the best possible way. With some brilliant stories, multi-choice dialogue options, and an eccentrically diverse visual aesthetic that is both vibrant and beaming with emotion, it gets a lot of things right. Is it for everyone? No. Will you still play it, if only to scratch that curious itch? Yes.

Verdict

Date Everything! strikes the perfect balance between being an eccentric dating sim and a completely bizarre sandbox of peculiar relationships, rich and oftentimes sensitive conversations, and unusual yet engrossing stories that divulge more than the casual ten-second exchange between a lampshade and a lonely heart. Oh, it’s totally absurd. Honestly, though, it’s also a surprisingly entertaining game that knows how to hold your attention. I can’t say that it does enough to make you develop feelings for your curtain rail, but it certainly does make you ask questions that you wouldn’t normally think about. That’s a win, I think.