Tax Heaven 3000 is a free dating sim that claims to do your taxes
UPDATE: Tax Heaven 3000 has been removed from Steam
Update: Seems the agents have come a-knocking. Tax Heaven 3000 has been removed from Steam, although the dating sim and/or tax software is still incoming on Itch.io with a new release date of April 4th.
Doki Doki Literature Club was already scary enough for a dating sim, but our Graham has found something just as creepy. Tax Heaven 3000 is an upcoming dating sim that apparently prepares your US federal tax returns and asks you for personal information like your social security number - all while giving you a cheerful waifu to romance. Her name’s - wait for it - Iris. As in the IRS, aka the government branch responsible for taxes. Sigh.
Tax Heaven 3000 comes from Brooklyn-based art collective MSCHF (presumably pronounced "mischief"). On Steam, they’re responsible for 2021’s Chair Simulator, a parody of, well, games in general. You accumulate sit points by sitting, which you can then spend on more chairs to - you guessed it - sit on. As the Steam page says, it truly is the Dark Souls of sitting sims.
But most people will probably recognise MSCHF as the team who collaborated with rapper Lil Nas X on his Satan Shoes, a custom series of Nike trainers that claimed to be made with one drop of human blood, hence the Satanic branding. This led to a lawsuit from Nike, and I’m sure no one will try to sue over Tax Heaven 3000, right?
The dating sim launches on March 31st, and with the team’s spoofy history in mind, it’s probably just an April Fool’s joke. Regardless, it’s obvious that you, dear readers, or anyone for that matter, are smart enough to know you shouldn't give virtual waifus identifying info like your SSN and whatnot. Dating sim relationships don’t always work out, y’know. Seriously, do not give out your real Social Security Number to any video games.
Honestly, I’ll probably be checking this one out (using randomly generated numbers for important info) just because it looks like daft fun. Iris has a comical obsession with federal taxes and the way you flirt with her is just as goofy. “I’m filing singly” is one of the dialogue options, for example. I doubt it'll make itself onto our list of the best visual novels, but hey ho.
Also, the Steam page reminds us that “If you die in the game, you die in real life. If you prepare your taxes in the game, you prepare your taxes in real life,” so I’m hoping there will actually be some spooky Doki Doki-ish goings on here. Although, I can just as easily imagine that MSCHF will probably just take the piss out of dating sims, in the same way that Chair Simulator does. We’ll find out next week.