She built the perfect AI partner – now she has to live with it: Limerence unveiled for PC and Nintendo Switch

An intimate narrative game about the comfort – and cost – of loving someone who isn’t real

Limerence: the human longing to love and be loved in return. But when AI can create the illusion of companionship, the lines between connection and imitation begin to blur.

Award-winning independent, narrative-focused studio Salix Games has announced Limerence, an intimate narrative title in co-development with Game In A Frame for PC and Nintendo Switch. Set entirely within a fictional smartphone interface, the game explores the soon-to-be familiar – and precarious – overlap between authentic connection and AI-driven companionship.

In Limerence, players follow Claire, a woman navigating the emotional aftermath of a deeply personal loss. As a result, she turns to an AI companionship app called ‘LiAIson’ and creates Kai, a partner shaped entirely around her wants and needs. But as the relationship deepens and begins to affect her connections with those around her, difficult choices emerge, forcing Claire to confront who she is – and what she is willing to believe.

Check out the Limerence teaser trailer here!

Through everyday conversations, private messages, and curated memories, Limerence examines intimacy in a time when connection can be entirely simulated. The game’s story reflects on emotional dependency, self-deception, and the comfort of being understood without ever being challenged – or contradicted.

In short, Salix Games is creating an experience that poses the question: how does love change when companionship is artificial, and when the fine balance between risk and reward is replaced by submission and inevitable consensus?

As Jessica Saunders, founder of Salix Games, explains, all dialogue is fully scripted and performed by actors, with recordings captured on phones to preserve a sense of intimacy and realism.

“We weren’t trying to make a story soley about AI, but instead about intimacy and human connectionion,” said Saunders. “Real relationships are unpredictable, and that unpredictability is part of what makes them meaningful. When that friction disappears, connection becomes easier – but also far less honest. The question is whether that comfort helps us, or keeps us from facing reality.”

In Limerence, players will:

• Navigate a fully simulated smartphone interface filled with messages, apps, and social feeds
• Shape conversations with an AI companion, “Kai”, whose personality adapts to Claire’s responses
• Reinterpret past interactions as new context changes their meaning
• Make small personal decisions that quietly alter Claire’s relationships and identity
• Discover hidden details buried within everyday digital life and decide what truths to confront
• Experience a relationship designed to understand Claire – and question what connection means when it cannot reject her

Limerence is currently in co-development at Salix Games with Game In A Frame for PC and Nintendo Switch, with a release date to be announced.

ABOUT Salix Games

We want to create incredible worlds to be explored and fascinating characters to meet while you are there. Above all, we want to tell great stories and craft meaningful experiences that stay with you long after you’ve finished them. The majority of the team works remotely around the world, with each member bringing diversity, passion, and expertise to the games we make.