Can playing video games help in treating mental illnesses?

Julian Laufer is a developer of ucoming metroidvania game Outbuddies, but his main field is clinical psychiatry. He develops games since he was a teenager, as this was always very calming for him and he loves to be creative in general. After the last project (just private coding, as everything before) went too big and he got to confused by its code, he decided to create a game he always wanted to make: A full-fledged classic metriodvania. So he started with Outbuddies. We played the game ot Gamescom, but we had to ask him about the connection of these two fields in development of Outbuddies, and a possibility of treating mental illnesses by playing video games:

There's actually pretty solid scientific data that playing games can help people to overcome mental diseases such as depression and anxiety disorders. In the US, for example, game designer Jane McGonigal is doing a lot of research on the topic and invented a program called SuperBetter to help people cope with various challenging life events in order to become happy and socially connected again. I did Outbuddies as a sole passion project related to my beloved childhood memories. Anyway, I'm considering the field of so-called "Serious Gaming" for one of my next projects.