How is the entire world not talking about the most absurd Nintendo announcement today?

Nintendo just hosted a novel back-to-back presentation: an Indie World Showcase and a Partner Showcase. With the unfortunately expected absence of Silksong news and Nintendo’s previously stated lack of Switch successor news, fans are a little split in what they were most drawn to.

The big headline is the long-awaited arrival of an entry of the beloved Yakuza series on the Switch. Some are excited about the cozy Sims game. Others, like me, are quietly freaking out about how gorgeous Neva looks.

But the game that has not left my head since it brazenly paraded across my screen during the Indie Showcase is Date Everything, which was by far the most absurd game showcased in either presentation. The premise of Date Everything is actually as it sounds: You can date everything. Your alarm clock. Your toaster. Your lamp. Your heartbreak. Your Overwhelming Sense of Existential Dread. The game itself.

The trailer for Date Everything just gets more and more absurd with each second. How is this not the game that everyone is talking about?

Textbox-chan for life

There’s a couple very proud entries in the “absurdist dating” sub-category of games. The godfather of them all is Hatoful Boyfriend, where you, a human being, seek the love of your life among a cast of very saucy birds.

Team 17 and Sassy Chap Games’ Date Everything feels like the logical next step in illogical dating. Instead of birds, you’re dating household objects which are now personified and hot—or concepts, Like Doug, your Overwhelming Sense of Existential Dread with six-pack abs and a depressed doughboy face. I feel like dating my Overwhelming Sense of Existential Dread is perhaps too close of a metaphor for how I feel about life for comfort.

Hell, you can even date Textbot-chan, who is the game itself. How did you not expect this to get another layer of meta?

What makes Date Everything truly remarkable is that it goes all in on the bit. There are over one freaking hundred datable characters in this game. And all of them—all of them—are fully voice acted. An indie studio getting over one hundred unique characters and dialogue branches for one game is ridiculous. That’s genuinely a feat, a true labor of love. Your hot towel man and your hot bobby pins deserve it.

Date Everything drops on the Switch, PlayStation 5, Steam, and Xbox X/S on October 24, 2024. I wonder if I can date my sense of anticipation.