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Random freezes, missing sound and display glitches usually trace back to one bad driver. Find and replace yours safely.Free scan · under a minuteSome purpose-built video games may help with specific mental-health goals, especially when they guide players through structured practice. That does not make ordinary entertainment games treatments, or mean any game is right for every person. Think of a familiar game as a possible coping activity—not a replacement for professional care—and judge therapeutic games by the condition, age group, evidence and support they were designed for.
Can video games help with depression or anxiety?
Sometimes, for some people and specific goals. The strongest case is for structured interventions designed to teach or practise a therapeutic skill, rather than the idea that playing any popular game treats a mental illness. Games may also offer distraction, engagement or a personally comforting activity, but those experiences vary and do not establish that a particular entertainment title is therapy.
A 2024 systematic review and exploratory meta-analysis of therapeutic games for young people included 14 studies and 2,027 participants. Across outcomes, the estimated overall effect was small to medium (d = .35; confidence interval [.23, .47], p < .001), based on 18 effect sizes. The review found that the kind of intervention mattered: a rational-emotive-behavioural focus was the only significant moderator for improvement in depression and/or anxiety. The authors described the findings as promising while calling for replication and attention to methodological and procedural concerns. Read the review record.
A separate 2024 systematic review covered 145 randomized controlled studies of applied and casual digital games for people aged 6–24. In clinical samples, applied games had the most favourable findings for social skills, verbal memory and anxiety; casual games had the most favourable findings for depression, anxiety and ADHD. Studies in healthy samples also included promising distraction in medical settings and short-term affect findings. The interventions and measured outcomes varied, so these results are not a ranking of games or evidence that every game in a category works. The authors called for more harmonized outcome measures and greater attention to nonspecific factors such as engagement. See the review in Clinical Psychology Review.
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A 2022 systematic review focused specifically on video-game interventions for people diagnosed with depressive disorders and reported encouraging overall findings. Its scope is interventions studied for that population; it does not establish that commercial games can replace psychotherapy or other care. Read the review.
Why the kind of game matters
Therapeutic games teach or practise a technique
These games are built around a defined intervention or skill. A game might guide a player through structured exercises, provide feedback, or connect in-game practice with challenges outside the game. Evidence for one design and population cannot automatically be transferred to another game, diagnosis or age group.
Casual games may be coping activities, not treatment
A commercial game might give someone a welcome distraction, routine, sense of achievement or social connection. Those are possible personal benefits, not a clinical guarantee. The reviews of casual games include a range of interventions and outcomes; they do not certify any particular entertainment title as effective therapy.
Prescription digital therapeutics have a narrower role
A regulated product can have a specific indication, eligibility criteria and clinician role. It should not be grouped with a game someone chooses for relaxation, nor assumed to address a different condition from the one named in its indication.
Games and programs to know—and what their evidence does and does not show
| Game or program | Purpose and intended audience | Evidence and practical limits |
|---|---|---|
| SPARX | An interactive fantasy game designed to deliver cognitive behavioural therapy to adolescents with clinically significant depression. The studied program used seven sequential modules, a guide to contextualize exercises, and real-life challenges. | A randomized non-inferiority trial studied the program with adolescents seeking help for depression; participants who were not improving were prompted to seek help from referring clinicians. This is evidence about a structured self-help intervention in a particular context, not commercial games generally. The University of Nottingham project page says SPARX is available only in specific geographic regions; check current access for your location. Trial · University of Nottingham project page |
| MindLight | A biofeedback game presented by its official site as intended to help children manage stress and anxiety. Biofeedback is used as real-time input in play. | The cited description and efficacy claims come from the game’s official site, not an independent evaluation. The site promotes randomized-trial evidence, but those claims should not be treated as independent proof on their own. Current price, geography, platforms and terms are not established here. MindLight official site |
| Goodville | A free-to-play mobile farm-game adventure that has incorporated health and wellbeing guidance through in-game characters in collaboration with WHO. | WHO reported that 1.5 million players had engaged with its assistant Florence and more than 930,000 had completed a dedicated quest line. Those are engagement counts, not measures of clinical improvement or proof that the game improves mental health. WHO announcement, December 12, 2024 |
| EndeavorRx | A prescription digital therapeutic delivered as a mobile game. Its official indication is improvement in attention function for children aged 8–17 with primarily inattentive or combined-type ADHD and a demonstrated attention issue. | This is not a depression or anxiety game. The FDA record classifies it as digital therapeutic software for ADHD and lists a substantial-equivalence decision dated December 13, 2023. The product information says it is prescription-only, should be used as part of a therapeutic program, and is not a stand-alone therapeutic or a substitute for ADHD medication. Check current clinical access and eligibility. FDA record · Product and safety information |
How to choose a game as a coping activity
If you are looking for something to play alongside your existing support, focus first on what you want the game to do for you. A title that helps you unwind may be useful as a personal routine even if it has not been studied as treatment. Do not infer a clinical benefit from a game’s popularity, genre or reassuring marketing.
- Name the goal. Are you looking for a brief distraction, an enjoyable routine, social play, or a structured skill-building program? Those are different uses and call for different evidence.
- Check who it was made and studied for. Note the intended age group, diagnosis or goal, and whether the evidence comes from people with a clinical diagnosis or a general sample. Do not generalize findings for young people to adults, or for one condition to another.
- Look for the mechanism and evidence. A therapeutic program should explain what skill or intervention it delivers. Prefer independent studies for claims about outcomes; a vendor’s description is not the same thing as independent evidence.
- Check the practical details. Availability, region, device, cost and access requirements can change. For a prescription product, check eligibility and use with a qualified clinician rather than treating it like an ordinary app purchase.
- Notice how playing affects you. If a game increases distress, disrupts sleep or crowds out activities and support you need, stop or change how you use it. A coping activity should be judged by its effect on you, not by a promise on a product page.
When a game should not stand in for care
Do not use a game to diagnose yourself or delay help for symptoms that are persistent, worsening or interfering with daily life. A game may sit alongside care if it is appropriate for you, but it cannot determine what treatment you need. For a regulated digital therapeutic, follow its indication and clinician guidance. The WHO’s 2023 mhGAP guideline addresses evidence-based care for mental, neurological and substance use conditions; a game recommendation is not a substitute for that kind of assessment and support.
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