Five Dates

I'll be straight with you: I walked into Five Dates half-expecting a cynical lockdown cash-grab. Wales Interactive had built their FMV reputation on grittier material - tense thrillers like The Bunker and The Complex - so a breezy rom-com about video dating felt like a detour. Forty minutes in, I was actually charmed. The premise is tight: you steer Vinny, a London millennial, through a dating app during the COVID-19 lockdown. You pick his profile picture, profession, star sign, and three interests before the dates even start, and those early choices ripple into conversation topics later. It is a small touch, but it makes you feel invested before Vinny has said a word to anyone. The core loop is a funnel. You pick three women from five to pursue, go on first video dates with each, debrief with Vinny's best mate Callum between sessions, then drop one woman before a second round, and finally settle on one for a third date. The five characters - a frontline nurse who games and cosplays, a no-nonsense corporate lawyer, a vegan poet, a social media influencer, and a singer-songwriter - are distinct enough that cycling through them on repeat playthroughs still feels fresh. Choices during dates feed into a real-time relationship score that shapes how scenes play out and which of the ten possible outcomes you land on. Quick-response timers keep you honest, though the settings menu lets you disable them if you prefer to think before you speak. The scene-skipper for footage you have already watched is essential for replays and works cleanly. Where the game splits opinion is on agency. Some players find the branching dialogue meaningful, others feel like too many choices are decorative. Callum, Vinny's wingman, is consistently the highlight - his post-date commentary is the sharpest writing in the project, and several reviewers singled him out as a genuine scene-stealer. The production, shot remotely on iPhones during actual lockdown, holds up better than it has any right to. The cast - which includes Mandip Gill from Doctor Who and Georgia Hirst from Vikings - brings genuine energy, even if the occasional audio level spike between scenes is jarring enough that you will probably touch the volume slider. The soundtrack leans on generic background music that does not add much. The lockdown framing is also a double-edged sword. It gave the project a sense of cultural relevance at launch, but revisiting it now means accepting that specific time-capsule quality as part of the deal. If you find pandemic nostalgia grating, it will wear on you. If you find it oddly tender, the game leans into that. A single run through the game takes roughly an hour, and seeing all ten endings requires multiple playthroughs - plan for three to four sessions to feel like you have explored the space properly. The straight male protagonist with no gender or preference options is a limitation the sequel, Ten Dates, addressed; worth knowing upfront. Five Dates does one thing exceptionally well: it puts genuinely watchable actors in front of a camera, gives them material with some real wit in it, and trusts you to feel something. It is not a deep systems game. It is closer to an interactive romantic comedy series with branching chapters. That description will tell you immediately whether you are the audience for it or not. Alex, Scout Team