Dispatch

A lot of things can change over the course of five years. Of course we’re talking about me, cuz if the intro sequence to these reviews aren’t talking about the past or some subject matter we can tie to the game in question then it’s me. Me, mwah, your dearest and brightest. Some guy who loves to babble on about video games way more than any normal person should. I used to have a pretty confined mindset when it came to the games I played and covered, but now it’s expanded and the games I refused to play before are ones I love now. Didn’t care for Assassin’s Creed growing up and blamed it for why open world game design has become stale alongside everyone else. Now I got really into Assassin’s Creed and managed to play more than half of the mainline entries in the span of two years. The only survival game I ever liked was Subnautica. Boom, this year I played The Alters and Pacific Drive, and now they’re my two most favorite survival games ever. I used to think walking sims have the worst ways of communicating a video game narrative, because of the many more creative ways game developers and writers have done so in the past. Well that’s changed too as I grew to love The Beginner’s Guide, The Artful Escape, etc.

As an individual grows older they tend to calm down and mature. Embrace things they hated in the past, because as the world becomes more f*cked up each day you gotta sometimes find hope in the weirdest of places. Such as heavy narrative focused video games, or movie games is what I used to call them. I’m not talking about any game with high quality cinematics like God of War or Metal Gear Solid, no. I’m talking about titles that are more than eighty percent cinematic and are more like films than actual games. With some dialogue choice or quick time events to remind you that this may or may not be a video game. Out of all the games I refused to cover before this was at the top of the list. Not because I thought they’re bad, but because if I were to spend time playing a game for which I was going to write about it better be dedicated to something with lots of things to talk about on the table. Game design, how fun it is, good bits, bad bits, narrative, and how it incorporates the narrative. Trying to review a game that's just a story is hard. I love to talk about narratives in video games, but there’s already plenty of people online who do deep dives for storytelling. I don’t want to break down the entire narrative, because it’s these kinds of things I want people to experience themselves. I can explain to them why it works for me, but sometimes other people may pick something else up. Self-interpretation

Last year was when I started getting more into these cinematic narrative driven games by finally trying The Wolf Among Us and The Walking Dead. Developed by the former Telltale Games until they shut down back in 2019. Two of the best games this studio ever made. Two of the greatest, well written, and emotionally compelling stories this team have ever handcrafted. Not just being great adaptations of the source material, but carving their own identity to set themselves apart. These two games are masterpieces, and I’d say my enjoyment of them was elevated by playing them alongside my older sibling. She adores these kinds of games, and specifically considers the first Walking Dead game as one of her favorite games of all time. She watched people play them when they were released in the past, and was thrilled to see me finally try them. Exciting me for what potentially happened next, and making choices alongside me. This past summer I finished the rest of The Walking Dead series, and it was the most fun I had with my sibling in a long time. While there are more Telltale titles, my journey with their library ended there. It’s understandable why Telltale went out the way they did. Adapting more properties then they could handle within a short period of time, and they choose your narrative formula becoming stale. I don’t think there will ever be another game that matches the same quality in writing as those early 2010 Telltale games. I never thought they would, or at least until recently.

In 2018, an independent studio made up of former Telltale and Ubisoft developers named AdHoc was formed. They wanted to use their former knowledge of development and writing to draft up the next major change in the narrative genre. They weren’t aiming to tell the best game narrative in the world, but they wanted their vision to come true. Around the same time though the Telltale of the past were trying to come back from the shadows. They contacted the former workers, the folks at AdHoc, to help work on The Wolf Among Us 2. Midway through development both sides reached a massive disagreement over direction and control. AdHoc left, became an indie studio, and eventually got more people on board. Their first project would be reworked multiple times during development, and eventually they pulled through to an animated series-like game in the style of those older Telltale titles. That game was Dispatch, and during the 2024 Game Awards they not only unveiled their new project but that this project was coming out in less than a year. I remember seeing Dispatch getting announced a year ago, and my thoughts went something like this, “Holy sh*t. That looks awesome.” It also reminded me of an Adult Swim series I really like. The Venture Bros, a show about heroes and villains existing in a basic world similar to our own where heroism/villainy is treated more like 9 to 5 everyday jobs.

There was a lot of potential in Dispatch. I knew it was going to be something great in the same way that Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 or The Alters was going to be something great. Much like those two I wasn’t expecting Dispatch to be better than I and many others hoped. Dispatch is one of the biggest games to blow up in 2025. I wouldn’t say it's on the same level as Expedition 33, Hades 2, Silksong, or many others but it’s on a higher level than the internet thought. The thing I find fascinating about Dispatch and its success is that it’s not just gamers celebrating how good it is. Even people who don’t play video games are cheering. Dispatch is the best game for people who don’t play games due to how story focused, cinematic, and accessible it is. The end question now is if it’s good. Is Dispatch actually good? Does it live up to the hype? I think it does. I had a lot of fun playing this, and I myself would argue that not only does it tell a great story but it’s one of the first narrative focused games that incorporates gameplay very well. In my defense this is both a good story AND a good game. Let’s discuss Dispatch, and why it’s truly that good. 

Story

The game takes place in a universe similar to our own. Technology advanced at the same scale as us, people attend their weekly jobs, and in most places it’s mundane as it ever was. The world is normal…. Except there’s motherf*cking superheroes with superpowers! As well as supervillains committing crimes such as theft, running gangs, and terrorizing people. Over the years numerous heroes rose up to protect the public and world peace. Well they can’t stop politics with corrupt evil agendas, but you get the point. Some heroes work independently and others join teams. One such independent hero is Robert Robertson, son of Robbie Robertson the former Mecha Man. He comes from a line of famous protectors and his father, now deceased, used to serve a league. The Mecha Men of the past piloted powerful high tech suits of armor. Able to cut down normal scum with ease, and fight the strongest of supervillains with crazy powers. Ever since Robert’s father was killed by his former ally now turned enemy Shroud he’s been doing everything he can to live up to his father’s name. Burning through his entire inheritance, giving up friends and family to perform better at his job, and sacrificing sleep hours just to protect civilians.

In recent memory, Robert has been tracking down the whereabouts of Shroud. Planning one day to avenge his fallen father. Robert managed to capture one of Shroud’s goons, interrogate him for info, and locate Shroud. Upon entering a warehouse he’s surrounded by numerous baddies and superpowered villains. Shroud demands Robert to give him the Astral Pulse, a device that helps power the Mecha Man suit. Robert refuses and manages to escape in time. However, Robert does not realize until mid-flight that a bomb was planted onto his suit. Sending him rocketing towards the earth, and heavily damaging the suit. Months later Robert wakes up from a coma to multiple cameras being pointed towards his face. Being accused of failing to live up to his family legacy, and avenging his father. Robert is now an ordinary man. Jobless, in debt, and unable to afford the repairs for his suit. He’s grown depressed, drinks heavily, and hopeless for the future. During his moping about he witnesses a group of thugs rob a TV store, and attempts to stop them. He’s then saved by Blonde Blazer, the face of the Superhero Dispatch Network. They work sorta like 911. Answering calls and sending heroes to help those who are in need of their services.

Blonde Blazer strikes Robert a deal. Robert has been given the opportunity from former family friend Track Star to work for SDN. He’ll be put in charge of the Z-Team, a group of heroes made up entirely of former villains and criminals. If he works long enough for SDN he’ll be given the money and resources to repair the Mecha Man suit, and fly into action again. Robert agrees, but quickly realizes the job will be a lot harder than he thought. As Z-Team is disfunctional, crude, and already gotten multiple dispatchers to quit due to their behavior. Not only is it Robert's job to do well so he can repair the suit, but also whip this team into shape. Slowly earning something he didn’t realize he needed, connections. No time like the present, and right now the present is in need of your help.

Gameplay

If you played a Telltale game or interactive narrative adventure before then you have a good idea how Dispatch works. You watch the story play out, the nice animation, and occasionally input a dialogue option. Usually one of four is given to you, and you’re timed on what choice you make as if not the game will automatically choose a pre-selected one for the player. Sometimes what you say matters, because characters will remember your statements or the course of the story will change. We’ll talk more about this later at the end, but overall pretty simple. There’s also once in a while a quicktime event where you have to input the right buttons or else your character will struggle. You can disable these moments in the options menu in favor of a more cinematic game, but in some way that kinda explains why I never hit a failstate during the cinematic moments. So yeah, it’s very simple stuff but what separates Dispatch from the multiple narrative choice titles of the past is the fact that there’s actual gameplay every now and then. Sequences where you are challenged to perform your job, which is dispatching, and if you fail it’s game over. 

The way it works is rather intriguing. It’s all about resource management, making correct choices and hoping you succeed. I would go as far to say Dispatch is a fast pace quick decision making action RPG with no real-time or turn-based combat. Each of your heroes slash ex-supervillains have their own stats. Each time you level up you can choose to level up one of six stats, but you only gain experience points upon succeeding in jobs. Every few seconds a job will appear on the map, and you have to select which heroes to send. Sometimes you can only do one, but at times you can send multiple. There is still a choice to send one or a few, but the more heroes you send the higher your chances are at succeeding. Your success with a dispatch may play out in one of two ways. Either what is referred to as a dice roll, or a check. A dice roll will see a ball bounce around on the stat menu. There’s space the dice will bounce around, and overlapping space that’s occupied by your heroes’ stats. The ball will bounce around and if it lands on the space occupied  by your heroes they succeed and gain experience points. If not they don’t get anything and they may even come back injured from a job. If they’re hit too much they get knocked out.

The second determination of a successful dispatch is a stat check. You will be given one of few options. Selecting a specific one will check if your hero or team of heroes have a high number in one of six stats. Pass the check and your team succeeds. Now despite how random success rates can be there is a way to determine how to succeed more easily. Reading the job description tells you what skills they need. Sometimes it’s not just stats, but heroes with a specific talent. Some stat checks can be passed entirely if you bring the right hero. For example, if you send your bat dude to a business seminar he may have the option to talk his way out not just due to his speech stat but also because he was a trader/conman during his former villain career. Sending the demon woman to a cult rally may scare them off, or sending your big clay monster to take care of a giant monster may net you a choice you were not expecting. Dispatch is all about making wise choices while under pressure, and with good thinking you can transform a dastardly scenario into one that can net wonderful results. Let’s just hope all of this is enough. Train the Z-Team to be better not just in skills, but as their own individuals. They may even help you at the end.

Thoughts

Dispatch is a great interactive narrative driven game AND a great video game. I’ve been seeing a ton of discussion surrounding Dispatch and this is one of the top comments. If Dispatch can even be considered a game despite more than eighty percent of it being dedicated towards storytelling, cinematics, and presentation. I’d argue Dispatch is a good video game. A very well designed one in my opinion, and it’s the next for these kinds of titles. I adore video games that take an average job or task, and transform it into an engaging gameplay loop. You could argue Yahtzee Croshaw conditioned me into this mindset, and in a lot of ways you are absolutely right. In fact, yesterday before writing this review he published his critique and I don’t want to look like I’m copying ideas or repeating opinions from others. No, far from it. Dispatch has a well designed gameplay that could’ve just been a lazy incorporation in favor of putting more focus in the story. However, the developers put an even focus on both and what we got is some fun fast pace management and decision making sections occasionally broken up with cinematics, vice versa. Creating a game where one doesn’t overstay it’s welcome and maintains balance. 

A player with terrible management skills would send heroes willy-nilly. It’s a strategy that could work, but the chance of them succeeding are low due to dice rolls and stat checks. You want to pass as much as possible, because you want your heroes to level up. There’s even rewards for yourself if you manage to gain more successes during shifts. Such as heals for your part, or the ability to quickly get a hero out of rest and back into the field. Choosing what stats to increase is decisive, because you may attempt to balance stats among heroes or min-max like I did. Increase one or two stats as much as you can, and form strategies on how you built your heroes. You may even notice heroes with specific traits have certain advantages. Flying heroes don’t need to walk the streets and can instead fly directly towards a location, or monstrous-sized heroes can carry the rest of their team rather than have them walk individually. I like how sending certain heroes to a specific task gives you an option to succeed in it instantly. Forming these clever moments where you think things are gonna get bad, but get rewarded for a small choice you made. In fact, I like how the game doesn’t offer checkpoints during shifts. A design choice some will despise especially those who suffer during the dispatching segments, but I like it because it creates some challenge. You can’t save scum your way through and you have to do it in one go. 

The gameplay loop is great, and I’d say Dispatch is one of few games where it accommodates with the story well. I wouldn’t say it’s the best. It sits behind The Alters for being the best in this category this year, but it’s close. It accommodates well with the narrative, because Robert is not just trying to do well at his job but also pushes the Z-Team to do better. To strive to be heroes rather than selfish and inconsiderate. It makes each success and level up rewarding, because it in some way shows Robert and Z-Team growing together. Which you get to see play out, as one of the main themes of Dispatch is connection. Robert has isolated himself for a long time thinking it is the only way to be good at his job. He lives in a rundown apartment, and from all we can tell he has no friends and his father was the only family he had. Then he joins SDN and from here we see him form connections. To empathize and understand those who weren’t as lucky or well loved as he was. He learns to open up, tell people how he feels, and be good to them. Robert is a loveable asshole. Within the first few minutes of Dispatch we learned he’s snarky, burnt out, and has served as a hero so long that he just doesn’t care what a supervillain pulls anymore. He talks to them passive aggressively, and doesn’t try to strike a conversation. It makes the minimalist apartment he lives in a bit more symbolic, because not only is it due to crippling debt but also just him being shut in. He didn’t let it grow just like himself.

It’s upon forming connections with people he is fully able to grow. To find worth in himself past just being a hero. To be a good person not just from what they do, but how they treat others. He’s a well written, deep, and dynamic character. He has his strengths and weaknesses, and it creates for fun interaction and events with other characters. The rest of the supporting cast is great, and I love the performances of these characters. Some being internet personalities like Jacksepticeye, MoistCritical, Alanah Pearce, Joel Haver, etc. While not being small in name I love how they got smaller personalities versus big name voices to play the cast. Really goes to show how far these folks have gotten to the point they’re voice characters. This whole team is just great, and I think in recent interviews voices and developers of Dispatch have talked about how AI has no place in game development. “AI is the solution for uncreative people,” not exactly the phrase but they took the words right out of my mouth. Dispatch is a game made by passionate people and I can tell they had so much fun making it. The quality of the writing, the characters, delivery of each moment, and the humor is actually funny. Games have made me laugh in the past, but when it comes to comedy centric games they don’t often work well with me. Dispatch has some of the best delivered comedy I’ve in a bit, and I am going to keep thinking about each joke

I don’t really have any major complaints about Dispatch to be honest with you. The gameplay is good and the writing is good, and those are the two focus points of the game. Another aspect I can praise is the animation, and yeah it’s perfect. It’s colorful, and handles the comic book style well without being too modern or classical looking. Everything moves fluidly and looks good, with some great choreographed action every now and then. Sometimes even facial gestures and body movement is good enough to tell how a character is feeling, and it’s a feat I feel like folks can only obtain through animation. More easily at least, cuz movies have done that before, but with animation I feel like you can do so much more. What has not been said about the animation in Dispatch? The game isn’t too long as well, which I like. Took me around eight hours to beat, and I appreciate how they went for eight episodes rather than five like past Telltale titles. I enjoy Telltale games, but sometimes I get burnt out by the end of some episodes due to them being two hours long each. Also appreciate how episodes came out weekly. I played Dispatch when all was said and done, but by following a weekly release schedule it keeps hype up. Versus waiting over a month or two until the next major episode releases. A feat only achievable if you’d made every episode ahead of time, and for Dispatch they did so I’m happy they prepared.

Again, no real major complaints about Dispatch. The only thing I can remark on is how it’s not my favorite game of 2025. I think it’s one of the best, but I wouldn’t say it’s the greatest thing in the world. Heck, it’s not my favorite story of 2025 despite me praising the writing. That would go to Clair Obscur, Death Stranding 2, The Alter, Old Skies, Citizen Sleeper 2, and then it would go to this game. Okay, so it’s close. I guess one thing I want to address is how many players have treated Dispatch like a romance game rather than a game about connections. Romance can and is in some way connected to… well ‘connecting’. However, the major discourse I've seen is how many of its players focused on romance rather than what this game is about. Without spoilers, a few of the choices you make directed towards one of the love interests will determine what kind of person they end up as. You’re trying to teach them how to be a good and better person. Show her she can redeem herself instead of self loathing all the time and think things won’t get better. So I was confused when people online freaked out about her storyline. Not getting the full scene and just seeing them as “one of two romance options.” I mean it is, but seeing it as just that is somewhat embarrassing and goes to show how little you put into understanding core themes.

This is a game about connection, growth, and rising to be better. Plenty of other discussions that surround this game, but I don’t want this review to be about internet arguments. My brain rots by just thinking about them, so we’ll stop here. At the end of the day, Dispatch is a masterpiece. It is a wondrous first try by AdHoc Studio, and I am excited to see where they go next. In the end I am going to give Dispatch a 10/10 for being incredible.

10/10, Incredible