DATE EVERYTHING! is a dating sim released in June 2025, and the first game developed by Sassy Chap Games, a studio formed by professional voice actors Ray Chase, Robbie Daymond and Max Mittelman. It includes over 11,000 hand-drawn art assets and an ensemble cast of over 100 voice actors, including some of my favorites, Matt Mercer, Brennan Lee Mulligan, Ashly Burch, SungWon Cho, Felicia Day, Neil Newbon and Courtenay Taylor.
I watched a bit of gameplay on YouTube and thought DATE EVERYTHING! looked like a fun, casual game with a few naughty twists. So, I started livestreaming it on August 19, just for something to do while I chilled and chatted with viewers.
Look, I know I’m not the target audience for this game. Not because I’m old and stuck in my ways. I don’t have a problem with pronouns, representation or sexual positivity. I think these are some of the game’s strengths, along with creative character designs and excellent voice acting. The 100+ fully-voice characters in DATE EVERYTHING! represent a variety of ages, genders, sexual orientations, cultures and personalities.
As someone in her 50s, I found a lot of the storylines pretty immature, but that’s understandable and forgivable. After all, how many people over 50 are out here playing dating sims?
The biggest problem I had with DATE EVERYTHING! was that way too many of the “dateable” characters were delusional, dishonest, selfish, abrasive, manipulative, traumatized, narcissistic or all of the above. The game should’ve been called Psychoanalyze Everything! or Everything Needs Therapy!
Maybe the creators and contributors to DATE EVERYTHING! were trying to teach players some life lessons by presenting such toxic characters as potential love interests, or maybe it was part of their attempt to subvert expectations and parody the dating sim genre. But, so much of it just wasn’t fun for me.
I don’t play a dating sim so I can be yelled at, threatened or provide free therapy to a bunch of personified objects I would sell at a yard sale, first chance I got.
I played for 35 hours, mostly just trying to progress several softlocked storylines that interested me but required me to complete several other storylines that didn’t interest me at all. I didn’t bother finishing almost half of the quests, which means I also didn’t “realize” anyone into becoming an actual human and getting them the hell out of my house.
There is an option to have characters hate you, rather than love or be friends, but if they hated you, you couldn’t realize them. Why? Why in the world would I want to keep sentient objects around that hated me? And I often found the “hate” relationship status to be unpredictable and confusing. Some characters I definitely wanted to hate me, but others I actually liked, all the way up until things went bad.
One minute, I’m hanging out watching sports with the vacuum, next minute he hates me. Dancing and smooching the sizzling breaker box babe, next thing I know he’s throwing me out of his bar. Can’t make heads or tails of a kitchen sink mystery, now my magnifying glass doesn’t want to see me ever again.
I couldn’t tell if I bungled storylines because I misunderstood subtext, because they needed a little more editing, or because they were just plain ol’ glitched.
Then there are the in-game content warnings, which allow you to skip any characters’ storylines that players might find too spicy or upsetting. I don’t understand why some characters had warnings and others did not.
Like, the enthusiastic fan had a warning because of her stalker-like behavior, but the creepy guy peering at you through the HVAC vents was okay? The junk drawer had a warning because he’s a hoarder, but the air fryer, fridge, stove, treadmill and breaker box could be frightening, aggressive and hostile, without any warnings at all.
So, careful not to trigger the hoarders, but abuse survivors? You’re on your own.
DATE EVERYTHING! is a cool concept, and there were some characters and storylines I really liked, but I feel like the devs were maybe a bit too ambitious. The complexity of a branching narrative with its cast of 100 characters seemed to get away from them, and the constant bugs, tonal shifts and inconsistencies really threw me off.
The character designs and voice acting were great but the writing was all over the place, and much of the content wasn’t even about dating. Some storylines included actual dating, others were mini-adventures, mysteries, shaggy-dog stories, couples counseling, therapy sessions, supernatural seances and other subjects that weren’t about dating at all.
Which, I didn’t mind when I found storylines engaging and endearing, if not particularly romantic. But many were repetitive, confusing, unfunny or so boring I started falling asleep in the middle of the livestream, which has never happened to me before.
Several conversations went something like this:
“Hmm.”
“…”
“Ugh.”
“I – uh uh”
“I don’t know.”
“Cool.”
“Whatevs.”
“I’ll think about it.”
I got so tired of clicking “X” to advance this kind of boring, pointless “writer has to hit the word count” prattle.
My husband popped in to watch, at one point, and later asked me if this was a game for junior high kids. Yeah, no, DATE EVERYTHING is rated “M 17+” for mature adults over 17, due to alcohol and drug references, partial nudity, sexual themes (including references to sex, bdsm, threesomes and sex toys) and strong language.
Yeah, I’m writing a whole lot about a game I say I didn’t enjoy, but that’s just it. I had a great time with some of the stories and characters, such as Dasha’s dates and Chance’s D&D – or rather G&G “Grottos and Gargoyles” – campaign. I admire the idea of bringing together so many voice actors, artist and writers, to make a dating sim with so much representation.
I’m just so sorry, DATE EVERYTHING! I wanted to love you, but now I don’t want to see you any more.
If this sounds like it’s up your alley, DATE EVERYTHING! is available for PlayStation 5, Xbox X/S, Windows PC and Nintendo Switch.
~ J.L. Hilton
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