58 / wfmag.ccReviewRated
GENRE
Visual novel
FORMAT
PC
DEVELOPER
Zachtronics
PUBLISHER
Zachtronics
PRICE
£11.39
RELEASE
Out NowInfo
ReviewTherapy for the gig economy
n the world of Eliza, mental health
care has become a thriving business.
Machine-based AI therapy has emerged,
and the titular Eliza is the market leader
because it retains the human touch,
delivering consultations through low-wage human
‘proxies’ who read from a teleprompter. You play
as Evelyn, one of the program’s original coders,
who has returned to the industry that burned
her out to experience Eliza as
a proxy and see whether it’s
really helping people.
Eliza is a visual novel that
purposefully and cleverly
limits your ability to interact
with it. You’re only given a few
choices per chapter, and during therapy sessions,
you can’t deviate from the script provided by
Eliza, even when it seems cold or unhelpful.
Evelyn gains more agency as the game goes
on; in the early stages, your choices will often
amount to whether you say ‘yes’ to requests with
conviction or hesitation. It’s restrictive by design,
because that’s the nature of the technology
Evelyn is handling. This means that once bigger
decisions start to present themselves, your
choices feel more meaningful, although there’s
nothing here you’re likely to agonise over for long.
Much of the game is about the Eliza system,
and the concept of AI-driven therapy. There are
advantages to this system: therapy is now more
affordable, less time-consuming, and easier to
seek out. On the other hand, there are seriousconcerns with data privacy to consider, and the
effectiveness of a system that removes so much
of the human element from therapy, and limits
many of its suggestions to games and exercises
available within parent company Skandha’s own
app, is called into question.
It would be all too easy to veer into a Black
Mirror-style style takedown of a thing that doesn’t
actually exist, but to the game’s credit it never
comes right out and says that
the concept of automated
therapy is inherently bad, as
long as it’s not viewed as the
be-all and end-all of mental
health treatment. The game is
consistently well-written and
voice-acted, but it’s perhaps, ultimately, a bit soft
on its targets. It’s unlikely that you’ll come away
from the experience with a changed perspective
or deep takeaway.
As a story, Eliza is effective, with interesting
characters, solid dialogue, and tremendous
flavour text in the various texts, emails, and
reports that make up much of the experience.
As an interactive experience, it lacks bite,
though, rarely asking you to engage with its
themes on a deep level. Even the ending is based
entirely on a single decision you make right at the
end, and viewing all of them is easy, so there’s
little sense of consequence (even if you pick
the one extremely sinister ending). But even if
it doesn’t always have good answers, Eliza asks
plenty of interesting questions.Eliza
I
VERDICT
A well-written and
engaging visual novel with
a little less on its mind than
it initially suggests.67 %
Rae’s a true believer in the
Eliza software, and one of
the game’s nicer characters.
Your clients are a mix of
newcomers and repeat
customers who treat Eliza
like an old friend.
HIGHLIGHT
Although Eliza isn’t a particularly romantic
game, there’s something charming about the
extraordinarily low-stakes flirting you can
engage in. A handful of characters will develop
a bit of a crush on Evelyn, and while there’s no
‘partnering’ system, which characters you’re most
receptive to might impact your final decision.REVIEWED BY
James O’Connor
ReviewRated
“It never comes out
and says the concept
of automated
therapy is bad”