Dispatch (2025)

I personally find it extremely humorous that a game touted as choice-attentive, hyped up as a loving pastiche of our beloved Telltale, conceptualized as a long-awaited return to form and tour de force of interactive narrative, manages to fall short of every aforementioned expectation... and instead resound in intermittent bursts between the advertised parts, in nooks and crannies where greatness is unable to be asphyxiated by the writing team.

I'm referring, of course, to the Z-Team, as a saving grace, and while I wish they had more screen-time, I know in my heart of hearts that that would have only led to stagnation, that more opportunities would've spelled their death, would've meant exponential growth of the chances of fuck-ups. I'm referring also to the actual minigame of dispatching, whose viability as a fun mindful mindless timesink and as a space for character development and unfurling of plot should be studied and taught as a hallmark of economic design.

Gripes are a Mar(t)y Sue blank slate protagonist, an unrepenting refutation of sexuality and gender dynamics and the collapse of both into a singular, simplified wavelength, acts of choice-based design sacrilege interlinked with a run of decisions that barely matter, vapid QTE sequences, etc. etc. You've heard this bit. Just go with the flow of the plot, indulge in the half-grounded, half-wonderfully-unreal joy of dispatching, spend time with characters you like and cover the screen when the ones you don't fancy appear in the frame. This is a rare case, whereupon I am compelled to say... don't stop and smell the flowers, for the love of everything holy. Kill the author as soon as possible and then... have fun.

A game I really liked and thoroughly enjoyed from start to finish, though I think it substantially suffers from pacing and runtime issues.

Characters like the story's main villain don't have as much screentime or exploration they feel they should deserve for how important they are to the narrative, the individual episodes often felt like they ended a bit too early just as they were getting in the groove. The actual dispatching felt like it could have been expanded a bit more too.

All the same, a very fun and endearing game that reminded me of my times playing past Telltale games and why I enjoyed them to begin with. Hopefully we get more seasons to better expand on the world and characters as they deserve.

I needed a slower game after binding on Hades 2 and this delivered. Great story with lovely graphics and animation. I hear the studio was pitching this as a TV show and ended up slumming it in game dev, and it shows. The dispatching gamplay is almost completely isolated from anything that happens in the story, which kind of sucks. There are some neat ideas, such as when your team is fighting among themselves and it's much harder to succeed, or the much slower gameplay after a very sad moment. But honestly this game is begging for an "autoplay" mode/mod; just chose a story-line up front and then let me just sit on the couch and watch it as TV.

Or, better yet, just make a TV show. I would've loved to have more episodes dedicated to different characters (like the old Star Trek) with a slower-burn main plot. Right now, the Z-team feels underdeveloped. I wanted a whole episode of Malevola infiltrating the cult of Chad, or a whole musical episode with Prism, or one following Golem trying to buy weed.

While I was riding to work I had a though: is this game better than The Walking Dead S01, which is, IMHO, the best Tell Tale game out there. And I had to admit that, no. As much as I liked the characters and the story, Dispatch delivers nowhere near the emotional gut punch that the end of TWD manages to. It might have to do with the aforementioned lack of time devoted to all the there's less time for characters to grow on you.

Article: Dispatch Review - With Great Power Comes Guaranteed Paperwork by Ben Reeves

Score Report: 9 / 10

Dispatch isn’t a triumph of mechanical innovation. It doesn’t reinvent the narrative adventure game, but it doesn’t pretend to. On the other hand, it delivers one of the most compelling interactive dramas in years, an adult animated superhero story with the emotional punch of prestige television and a script that truly shines. I didn’t want to stop playing just because I needed to know what happened next; I kept playing because I cared who it was happening to.

I don't even have anything clever to say, I'm just in awe. When they told me the writing was good, I didnt think they were lying, but I wasn't expecting some S Tier type shit, I mean this is glorious, it feels like a much more grounded (as opposed to the boys) and much less edgy (as opposed to Watchmen) attempt to deconstruct the hero archetype. Even then though, it's so much more than a Suicide Squad ripoff, it's got this Adult coming of age, found family thing going on that works so surprisingly well. It's been a while since I've played a 'Life is strange' indie point and click, and though I loved those games, even I admit the writing just doesn't hold up for me, let alone the gameplay. I thought the interactive, immersive narrative thing would be just a trope, but man the tensest moments of this were me trying to hack my way through a fight scene, knowing a teammate was counting on me, bro I felt like I was right there with them, palms sweaty, knees weak etc etc. Simple, completely lacking in flash and yet so narratively effective. Put that shit in everything I watch from now on. Lol.

Adhoc man, I've got my eye on you guys. You fuckers are onto something here. Give me ten more of these.

Wow, I played this twice in the last week of 2025 and absolutely loved it.

The story it tells is compelling and fun, if a little predictable. The star of the game is the performances from the voice actors/animators to make a cast of truly lovable reforming villains.

I enjoyed the relationship sim that is at the core of a lot of the choices, but the choices for your team was also fun and compelling.

Playing a second time it does become clear that most of the game only players a certain way, but honestly I didn't care.

Well worth a play if you like funny and charming visual novel style games.

I can see why there has been so much hype surrounding this game because it was genuinely so fun to play and pretty much took over my gaming for the past week or so. I had an absolute blast with it and I really hope that an official announcement for a season 2 will be released soon because I would absolutely love to see where the story and characters go from here.

I think my favourite aspect of the game has to be the characters. They all feel so alive thanks to great character writing and performances from their voice actors and even for the characters on the Z-Team that get less screen time, they still manage to make a major impression and this only adds to wanting a season 2 even more so that more of the cast can be explored fully. The writing overall is really fun and genuinely made me laugh so many times without feeling like it’s trying too hard or being excessively edgy.

I also really liked the main gameplay feature of the dispatching and wish that there was more of that within the game, though the animation that essentially makes the game a TV show is incredible to watch and is genuinely so well done. Maybe with a season 2 or even a future update they’ll add in more dispatching content so as to allow for more consistent gameplay as well as for scenarios in which the characters can get in their fun one liners while on call.

If there was one issue for me keeping the game from being 5 stars, it would probably be the way that the romances are handled. I went down the Blonde Blazer route and actually really enjoyed their dynamic and liked that she was her own character outside of her romance with Robert but I wish we got to see more of them together. It feels like the game really wants to push you into the Invisigal romance route which in my opinion just isn’t as effective or necessary as her arc of becoming a hero and being confident in that role could have easily been done without a romance between the two and just a mentorship instead. I was able to succeed as a mentor and keep her as a hero while romancing Blonde Blazer so the Robert-Invisigal romance doesn’t seem majorly crucial for either of their developments. I also just wish that there had been more romance options across the whole of the Z-Team, not just Invisigal and Blonde Blazer, especially as it would just allow for more choice and more interesting dynamics.

Either way, I was still very happy with how the romance played out in my route and I really enjoyed the game as a whole. I feel like the choices matter enough where there’s also an urge of replayability to it too which is a success in its own right.

Article: UPDATE: Dispatch Is Soaring To Switch 2 And Switch Next Month by Marcus Stewart

Developer AdHoc Studio announced the news on social media, and the US eShop now has a store page where the game can be pre-ordered at a 10 percent discount. ($26.99 instead of $29.99). Those who buy the game on the original Switch can also upgrade to the Switch 2 version for free.

The Telltale adventure game format really grabbed me with the initial seasons of The Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us, but subsequent licensed or original titles from Telltale and others didn't grab my attention or hold my interest quite as much. Probably the closest I've got anytime recently is As Dusk Falls, which I enjoyed but found pretty forgettable in the long run, and I've been wanting a great one of these again. So Dispatch arrives at a pretty good moment, an original, fun, memorable title from ex-Telltale people who know how to make this format work. Its first episode is probably the weakest as it sets things up, but once it sets its foundation and gets in a groove it mostly just gets better and better as it goes.

"Superhero workplace comedy" is probably how I'd most succintly describe this, and it honestly mostly nails that foundation. The episode lengths and overall format/structure really capture the sort of corporate routine and camaraderie that the story is going for, particularly in how it incorporates its gameplay which has you sit down for a shift of "dispatching" your hero roster out to handle distress calls around the city. Each hero has their own strengths and special abilities which end up developing into a pretty fun strategic juggling of priorities and cooldowns. The game does not expect perfection, and often it's all about just making the best call you can with the limited information and resources you have, which can easily go wrong. That's especially true because your "heroes" are actually all a bunch of misfit former villains who sometimes show they have minds of their own. The party banter between these characters can be a lot of fun, with personality really being a huge part of what these gameplay-focused sections are offering. You and the heroes will often not want to be doing this stuff, but the occasional tiring and mildly frustrating nature of the task is itself a big part of the story that helps build your team's bond.

There's also a hacking minigame which is rarer but somewhat engaging, not my favorite but not an unwelcome change of pace, but the main other thing you come to this kind of game for is making choices. There's no shortage of interesting little ones to make, though if you're looking for a story that branches wildly in different directions, you may be a bit disappointed. These choices are compelling but in many cases more about forcing you to reflect on the characters and situations in a way that colors the events without hugely changing outcomes. In the end it seems to be more about how a lot of choices add up, which did disappoint me a little as I seemed to miss some thresholds that felt punishing—one character's conclusion played out almost as if I'd done nothing for them at all, when I'm sure I must have been just a couple choices from the other outcome after preferring to not be black and white about things. Anyway, I guess the fact that I cared enough to regret things and want to try again shows that what this does definitely worked. And even when the outcome doesn't change, the game makes it feel like it matters how your character and teammates end up feeling about it based on what you said and did.

In the first episode, I worried a bit that I wouldn't really enjoy the superhero action, which would have been kind of a problem as a lot of this is almost TV-like in how you are just sitting back and watching. Luckily, it got better once more heroes got involved. I particularly like some of the cool and dynamic editing/transitions done in many of the action scenes, which help give them a lot of energy on top of what they already get from your team full of different powers and personalities. I felt similarly about the main character, who at first doesn't really jump out much but gets to shine in his work and relationships once things are in motion. Character writing in general here can occasionally miss with random dated references and other failed humor, but hits much more often with some real laugh-out-loud moments. The main plot is not necessarily as much of a strength as how it's told and what characters are in it, but I generally liked it. I think some of the possibility space in terms of outcomes is interesting, and again would not mind to play it again to get a more preferred outcome, but even what I got was interesting and mostly dramatically satisfying.

The general balance of snappiness and weight to the game's 8 episodes made this work really well as something to just play in chunks of one episode per day. It fits the story too, though by the time I got to the last two episodes, things had escalated to a point where I wanted to just knock those two out together instead of waiting. I would generally recommend giving this 2 or 3 episodes before deciding if you like it, but I could also very easily see a lot of people being hooked immediately. My opinion of this grew over time, but I was already pretty bought in early on. I think generally this is one of the more memorable games of the year thanks to how much personality it has, and would definitely consider it one of the essentials of this kind of game.

I cannot express how much I've missed really good story-driven episodic games that allow you to make dialogue choices and influence the way the game plays out, however slight. The characters and personalities, and jokes just hit me the right way, and I really enjoyed playing the game the way I chose to.

A big gripe is that the choices don't impact the story in most cases, but honestly, that's okay. I think the way in which they do it adds enough engagement for me to really like that on top of the really tight story already. Had they focused more on player impact and choices, I could see the quality dipping potentially to make many different scenarios work, and I like the trade-off of minor influence with a maximised story.

I was so extremely devastated when The Wolf Among Us 2 was in the hands of the new Telltale, but with AdHoc working on it, I am so extremely hopeful. Welcome back, new Telltale, and I look forward to more great things.

4/5

Played with my wife. Great fun. Best way to describe is a fun TV show with a cool concept that you get to interact with. Having influence over the plot elevates an "eh" show with cringe writing at times to something pretty special, even more fun with company. The dispatching minigame is also challenging and satisfying, the hacking is pretty boring though. Keen for the next season, if they make one.

I was very excited to try this game after seeing all of the traction it has gotten now that the story is finished. I thought the voice acting was amazing, the characterization was good, and the visuals were enjoyable. All of the sex jokes and the raunchy nature of this game were funny, I guess, but it made everything completely unserious, which I think hurt the story more than it improved it.

So I was under the impression that this was a story game where my choices would impact the ending. Fiiirst of all. Whether you choose Sonar or Coupe, the story is the same. They are very angry with you so they become a villain working with Shroud and you fight them in the final boss sequence. Maybe I was spoiled by detroit become human. The final episode's dispatch experience was very unenjoyable, but I also just didn't really like the dispatching part of the game and would literally sigh every time it brought me back into that screen. It's so unfun, you just click and things happen.

There are very minor changes to the story when you make a choice, like a different scene or voice line, but it all leads to the same outcome anyway. When it seems like all odds are against you, regardless of whether you hand the pulse to Shroud, you will still win because he suddenly cannot handle you jumping on top of him and punching him after having fended off an entire posse of heroes and powering up. You either kill him or you don't, and it really makes no difference. The characters have a lot of plot armor, for example, Chase. While it would have been sad for him to actually die, it would have been SOME kind of twist in the plot.

Again, as a story game, this didn't really live up to my expectations. For a game that took years to complete after its initial release and 1 hour long episodes, you would think they would script in more than forced failures and "choose a or b to receive this image and title at the end of the game!" lameee.

Be prepared, this is 67% a TV show, and 33% a game, but for what it's worth, it's really good at doing each part respectively. Dispatch is a solid narrative story that has an amount of choices that are available to the player to affect the story. If you set your expectations - it's closer to Mass Effect than it is Kill the Princess - it's a wonderful ride to be along for.

Games like these live on their writing, and though it can come off as slightly juvenile at first, I actually found it to be endearing as the game went on. Robert (the protagonist) is managing a team of former villains turned heroes, and their caustic and crude language actually does a lot to set the tone of what Robert is dealing with. The Z-Team are really a force that needs to be reigned in and pushed in the right directions, but Robert is capable keeping of seeing the good in them, and they're willing to give him a chance, despite their differences.

By far my favorite part of the story is the terrific characterization. The Z-Team, SDN staff, and the villains all have strong and clear character traits, and the way they respond to your choices is always driven by their personalities rather than what the plot "needs" them to do. The fight scenes are filled with clever uses of each character's powers and they never suffer from the cliche of characters not using their powers to their fullest extents.

The gameplay itself is solid. If you've ever played This Is The Police, you'll find this gameplay familiar and fun. For the most part, the gameplay isn't that challenging, the puzzles are relatively simple, and the QTEs don't have any significant impact on the game, but... Despite that, I still had a blast. The gameplay segments are filled with great characterization of each hero, in both the dialogue, and the unique interactions between heroes and events that they're especially fit to complete.

Dispatch is great and I'd just generally recommend it to most people.

my friend told me to check this game out and i have been clinically obsessed with it since i watched the first play through (and immediately bought it for myself). this one was a breath of fresh air for me, i have been a huge fan of the telltale games (the wolf among us the most out of every game) since the beginning and seeing that essence back is genuinely wonderful.

its full of cliches and stereotypes, rather simple character design, basic dirty humor and a shit load of dick jokes. most of the characters arent miles deep but i ended up finding all of them equally charming (even the ones i hated at the beginning, im looking at you flambae). the plot was fun and, although it didnt have the most surprising twists and turns, i didnt feel like the predictability made it boring.

i have seen a lot of people complain about "the illusion of choice" and how the choices dont genuinely matter most of the time and, while i agree to some degree, i feel like that is expected? these are not the kind of games id group with other choice based games like DBH and i find "flavor choices" really fun cause it lets me shape and mold the mc to my taste and feel like a more active agent in the story. i don't care that they dont have real weight to them, but this could be totally biased just because i like the more roleplay aspect of it.

the dispatching gameplay in general was incredibly fun and it reminded me a lot of 911 operator (which i used to be super obsessed with back in the day). I would have liked to have a lot more and longer shifts with more unique events, the last episode was so so so cool in this aspect.

in terms of negative points for the game ill state the obvious. the romance is on the more lackluster side and it felt too rushed and superficial (i think this partially because you, as the player, only feel that a couple days go by, it doesnt feel like you spent months with the team) and doesnt feel like a truly meaningful addition to the narrative. in general the game would have benefited a lot from longer episodes and more episodes to get to know the cast more and build more connections with everyone. stretching the plot out and having a subplot to go with would have made it feel more 3dimentional aswell.

im gonna spoiler this now to mention a bug during ep8 which honestly annoyed the fuck outta me: during the dispatching, on the second half when the map expands and you need to fight whoever you kicked, whenever i sent sonar or phenomaman with any other team member to any mission it would ONLY count sonar or phenomaman's stats, never the other members. i restarted the game and episode and redid this part of the dispatching 5-6 times and it just kept happening so i gave up. i failed many missions and couldnt save los angeles or defeat coupe which dwindled my enjoyment a lot ngl. i dont know if this was the reason why i couldnt save coupe in the end but man was i bummed out i was hoping to save my girl

all in all, i think this ended up being a very solid game that has showcased what adhoc can do and i genuinely have faith in what they will come up with next. theyve said that a season 2 is a possibility and i want to hope that theyre gonna do even better. this is also one of those games that truly begins to shine even more once you get into the fandom and thats a wonderful experience.

very very solid 4star for me, i am already starting a new playthrough

(sonar mi pana tkm aunque te cagues en el aparcamiento)