Have you ever wanted to be in a polyamorous relationship with every item in your house? Have you ever wondered what it would be like if each of those pieces of furniture, collectibles, and junk came to life as wildly unique and quirky romantic partners voiced by some of the greatest actors in gaming and animation history? If your answer to either of those questions is yes, then Sassy Chap Games’ first title Date Everything! is for you! If you answered no, then you’re simply wrong, at least this time around. Or I’m wrong. I suppose we’ll find out shortly.
Sassy Chap Games is a new studio formed by the incomparable voice acting talents of Ray Chase from Final Fantasy XV, Destiny 2, and about a million other things, as well as Amanda Hufford from Genshin Impact, Goddess of Victory, and you guessed it… a million other things.
Chase and Hufford, along with Robbie Daymond from Critical Role, Spider-Man, and… well, you get the picture by now, and Max Mittelman from One Punch Man, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, etc., have all banded together to found a wonderfully creative and talented development team of about 33 people, just like the Clair Obscur team at Sandfall Interactive.
The studio was initially created as a side project for the popular voice actors, but with their storied careers in the industry, they were able to get together one of the greatest voice casts in gaming history for their very first game, and when I say great, I mean it!
Date Everything! features heavy hitters like Troy Baker, Matt Mercer, Felicia Day, Laura Bailey, Ben Starr, Roger Craig Smith, Ashley Johnson, Steve Blum, Debra Wilson, Neil Newbon and dozens more of the highest profile actors from all of the biggest titles in gaming and animation! It’s absolutely mind boggling, the sheer amount of top-tier talent that was enlisted to play raunchy romanceable furniture, but it is truly something to behold.
Before even reaching the start screen, I was met with various familiar voices saying the name of the developer Sassy Chap Games, the publisher Team 17, and the title of the game, each changing voices and inflection every time I started the game up again.
It’s the little touches like this that showed the tremendous attention to detail and the care for the user experience that only people from within the gaming sphere could truly understand and express in such a way. From the artists and animators to the music producers and writers and everyone else on board, there was a sincere and passionate creative flow that never slowed down once it was launched into motion.
Date Everything! follows the story of a custom player character who is hired and quickly replaced by AI on their first day working remote due to a bunch of corporate nonsense that can be learned and replied to throughout the narrative. When a hacker ex-employee sends the player a mysterious pair of glasses called the Dateviators, their world changes forever after adorning the wearable miracle of modern science, as they open up a whole new world of dating possibilities.
These potential suitors are not human beings however, as the glasses bring life to each and every piece of furniture, junk, and everything in between in the player’s home, leading to a fantastical and often hilarious adventure in love, hate, and the true meaning of friendship.
After a brief tutorial with Skylar, the personified embodiment of the glasses themselves, the player is free to engage in all manner of quests from detective work with Maggie the magnifying glass, rating restaurants run by appliances with a partner made of snacks, going on Indiana Jones style adventures with Beau, the beautiful and eccentric box with her trusty extension cord whip, and so much more!
I wish I could go into greater detail here, but I’d have to write a novel to cover the unbelievable amount of silly, emotional, gripping, sexy, and ridiculous narrative content that this game offers. The devs clearly put a lot of love into the game (pun intended) and even included all 33 members of the team as part of a speed dating quiz show that is cleverly hidden somewhere in the game, which I’ll leave to you to uncover on your own.
Utilizing their cellphone (which is also dateable), the player can interact with the ‘Date-A-Dex’ to keep track of characters they’ve met and their relationship status with them, ‘Roomers’ to follow quest lines, Thiscord to speak with personal contacts, WRKSPCE to interact with their employers, and individual apps for saving/loading, checking stats, and even a couple of hidden character interactions, the player will find themselves equipped with all of the tools necessary for tackling the titillating task of trying to talk to everything and everyone that they can. These apps become especially useful in the later game as more characters are discovered and story arcs are pursued.
The Easter eggs are aplenty and created with passion, the hidden content is remarkably well concealed and equally intriguing, and the references to other films, games, animated shows, etc., constantly poke fun at the creators of the game and the innumerable voice actors lending their voices to the phenomenal cast of colorful and surprisingly deep characters.
The characters are where the game truly shines. There are 100 prospective daters in the base game, with a DLC pack that cleverly includes a micro-transaction as a new potential partner, and each and every character is voiced as though they are the main character of their own title. I mean… what else would you expect from such a high caliber of quality creators?
Each dynamic dateable has their own cleverly crafted outfit and aesthetic that perfectly complements the object that they are representing in a semi-human form. From a skirt produced from a plant pot to Nordic warrior’s armor forged from a treadmill track, a cowboy hat made of a table top to a bra made of money, there is no shortage of intensely imaginative and expertly drawn and rendered costumes worn by the cast of wacky weirdos and downtrodden doorstops that so precisely execute their individualistic personalities that match with their appearances.
I couldn’t even begin to pick a favorite character, as the overwhelming nostalgic force of the voices from my favorite games and shows coupled with the best writing I’ve ever seen in a dating sim would simply make it impossible to settle for one. Fortunately for me and every other player, YOU DON’T HAVE TO!
Date Everything! truly lets you date EVERYTHING! Monogamy doesn’t exist in the world of these books, baths, couches and cookware, and even though some are far more traditional than others, and some are… incredibly ‘liberated’ in that regard, the player can become friends, fall in love, or create a lifelong hatred with any and all of the characters on offer, and there are some beyond bizarre characters outside of the expected tables, chairs, doors, etc.
I mean, there’s a glitching daemon bug left in the game after one of the characters was removed due to redundancy, an insane sink with a split personality disorder, the physical embodiment of the player’s nightmares, and the lord of darkness himself xxXShadowLord420Xxx! Yes, I know what you’re thinking, and yes you can ask them about it.
The humor in this game is meta, referential, and sometimes founded upon inside jokes and prior knowledge of pop culture from the last 40 years or so, which aid in the player’s immersion and personal experience as everyone is different, so everyone’s experience playing the game will be uniquely their own.
The freedom is unmatched and leads to a great deal of exciting interactions between the living objects, who often come together in groups for specific quests, games, adventures, and roleplaying experiences. This is my favorite part of the game by far. I absolutely adore seeing so many of my favorite voice actors all bickering and joking and fighting and flirting as these quirky and fascinating characters that I personally chose to try and love to the best of my ability.
Speaking of ability, this game features a skill tracker much like that of the Persona series (which many of Date Everything!‘s founders and voice actors have starred in over the years), where the player is presented with a star whose points represent different stats called S.P.E.C.S. Much like the SPECIAL system from the Fallout series (once again, of which many of the stars were featured in), S.P.E.C.S. represent Smarts, Poise, Empathy, Charm, and Sass.
Each stat opens up new and unique dialogue options that lead to some pretty funny moments, and once they are at a high enough level, the player has the ability to turn the personified liquor bar, trash cans, light bulbs, etc. into human beings! Not just an approximation of a human being as they appear while wearing the Dateviators, but actual, living, breathing humans that can interact with the world outside of the house and truly experience human emotions and freedoms.
This process is called ‘Realizing’, and once an object has been realized, they will no longer appear in the player’s game, and once every character has been realized, the final friend to free is the pair of Dateviators themselves. Though it may be bittersweet to lose them, the relationships developed throughout the game will leave a lasting impact on the player in more ways than one, and the kindness of liberating these once-inanimate objects feels gratifying in its own way.
This game was a total surprise hit for me as these aren’t typically my preferred style of game, but it was so incredibly enjoyable and entertaining, that I had no choice but to love it. With tons of alternative paths and differing scenarios, a load of collectibles and secrets to uncover, and a treasure trove of both playful and profound experiences, I’m giving Date Everything! a 9.5/10!
It was a genuinely fresh and exciting experience that I will absolutely be playing over and over to try and get all the different outcomes, and frankly, I honestly can’t wait to put those glasses back on.
Date Everything! is currently available on Xbox, PlayStation, Nintendo, and PC.
