Eliza

oh hell yeah

Interesting story and characters, still very relevant.

This game is very much like a Therapist (We know, it says counselling in the outset). I'm going to quantify that for you, this game raises a lot of VERY serious, very pertinent and topical questions that much like a therapist it never truly answers, however unlike a therapist it is in no way equipped to answer in the first place. I don't shy away from games with difficult, mature topics, or games that have a significant lack of achievements to track progression which is why I undertook "Eliza". It's a Visual Novel, we know that, again, we knew what we were getting into but perhaps the most worrying aspect of this game isn't that it has a pre-determined ending, which, of course it does, but it's that it doesn't even lull you in to a false sense of thinking there's other ways out by giving you lots of choices and branching paths before ultimately ending up where you do. At least if I had sweeping paths leading to other areas with other characters or choices that determined who was still around towards the end I could forgive it, but it doesn't. It's very paper-thin. A Route or B Route. It's always A and B and no matter what you do you arrive at the same pre-determined p…

Absolutely phenomenal game. The story was mature and thoughtful, it respected me as a player and allowed me to think for myself and not pointing too hard at one specific "correct" way to think about all of this. The characters all felt like real people and I felt immersed in my role at the centre of the story. I really can't give higher praise to a visual novel than what Eliza managed to accomplish. I wholeheartedly recommend it.

Solid visual novel with themes that are becoming increasingly relevant. Well worth your time in 2026.

Eliza is a mature and contemplative visual novel that explores artificial intelligence, mental health, corporate technology, privacy, and the complicated boundary between genuine human empathy and automated assistance. Developed and published by Zachtronics, it takes a remarkably restrained approach to subjects that could easily have been turned into exaggerated science fiction. Instead of presenting AI through robots or futuristic disasters, the story examines a technology that feels disturbingly plausible: an automated counseling program that determines what should be said to vulnerable clients while a human proxy delivers those words in person. The story centers on Evelyn Ishino-Aubrey, a former technology professional returning to society after spending several years away from her previous career and social circle. She takes a job working for Eliza, an AI counseling service where her responsibility is not to provide her own advice but to repeat responses generated by the system. This creates one of the game's most effective sources of tension. Evelyn is physically present with people discussing deeply personal problems, yet the software controls what she says. The arrangement …