TL;DR: Dispatch is a superhero workplace comedy with an all-star cast, sharp writing, and characters you’ll actually miss when it’s over. The gameplay is thin — basically a visual novel with a dispatching minigame. Doesn’t matter. The story carries it completely. One of 2025’s best games and it’s not particularly close.
Rating: 9/10
Most reviews won’t tell you this part.
The studio that made Dispatch — AdHoc, built by former Telltale and Night School developers — went six months without paying themselves to keep the lights on. They were close to folding before Critical Role stepped in with funding to get the game finished.
That matters. Because Dispatch is a game entirely about second chances. About people who failed, got written off, and somehow found a way back.
The people making it were living that story in real time.
That’s why it hits the way it does. The sincerity isn’t manufactured. It earned it.
What Is Dispatch?
Dispatch is an episodic superhero workplace comedy from AdHoc Studio — eight episodes, released weekly in October-November 2025. All episodes are available now if you’re playing for the first time.
You play as Robert Robertson — Mecha Man — voiced by Aaron Paul. His family-legacy super suit gets destroyed in a fight with his nemesis. No suit. No powers. No field work.
So Robert takes a desk job at the Superhero Dispatch Network. Basically 911 for superheroes. He sends other people into danger while he sits behind a screen and slowly rebuilds.
The team he manages — the Z-Team — is a group of ex-supervillains given one shot at redemption. Former assassins. A literal demon. A thief with invisibility powers who really hates being called a villain.
Over eight episodes you watch this dysfunctional mess become something real.
The Characters Are the Whole Game
Every review says this. None of them say it specifically enough.
Robert is the emotional anchor. Sarcastic, grief-driven, desperately trying to live up to his father’s legacy while quietly wondering if that’s even what he wants. Aaron Paul plays him with genuine weight. Not just “celebrity doing voice work.” An actual performance — genuinely on par with his Breaking Bad days if you ask the internet.
Invisigal is the standout arc. Foul-mouthed former thief. Invisibility powers she resents. Deep insecurity about being seen as a villain. Her journey across eight episodes is one of the best character arcs in any game this year, full stop.
And then there’s Sonar.
Most reviews mentioned the cast and moved on. That’s a mistake. Sonar is the best written character in the game. Chaotic, funny, traumatized in ways the game never over-explains, and he steals every single scene he’s in without once undermining the emotional beats around him. User reviews on IMDB consistently single him out by name. There’s a reason for that.
The rest — Blonde Blazer, Phenomaman, Prism, Malevola — nobody feels like filler. By the final episode you’re invested in all of them. Genuinely.
The Writing Does Something Hard
Dispatch is properly raunchy. Dick jokes. Fart jokes. Profanity absolutely everywhere. There’s a content filter if that’s not your thing.
And somehow — when the game needs to hit something real — it does. Every time.
That balance is harder than it looks. Most superhero stories either go full spectacle or full grim darkness. Dispatch finds a third thing. Irreverent but human. The Boys is the obvious reference point but the tone is warmer. Less cynical. More genuinely interested in whether people can change.
The opening scene — Robert on the floor talking about his dad being killed by Shroud — sets everything up in two minutes. Dark. Vulnerable. Funny a beat later.
You know exactly what you’re in for.
Choices — What Other Reviews Got Wrong
Most reviews either oversold or undersold this. Here’s the actual truth.
The choices don’t change the overall plot. The story ends where it ends. If you go in expecting massive branching paths with wildly different outcomes — you’ll be disappointed.
But that’s measuring the wrong thing.
What choices actually do is shape relationships and individual character outcomes. Who trusts Robert. Who resents him. Who the Z-Team members become by the final episode. These decisions stack in ways you don’t notice until suddenly everything either holds together or doesn’t.
It’s closer to authoring how you experience the story than rewriting it. Think re-watching a great show and noticing things you missed — not picking a different ending.
Once you accept that’s the design intent, it works beautifully. Fighting against it just creates frustration.
The Gameplay — Being Honest
The dispatching minigame has real problems that most reviews were too gentle about.
The concept works. You review emergencies, match heroes to situations based on stats and personality traits, manage cooldowns, keep the city covered. It adds a genuine strategic layer other visual novels completely skip.
The execution is inconsistent.
The interface is messy. Icons aren’t clearly explained. Success conditions shift in ways that feel arbitrary rather than emergent. Multiple reviews flagged this — the game regularly pulls the rug on you mid-mission without making clear if that’s intentional design or just broken feedback.
The bigger issue nobody mentioned: you cannot replay dispatch segments without re-watching the entire episode. No cutscene skip. No chapter select for gameplay. If you want to fix a failed shift, you’re sitting through 30-45 minutes of content you’ve already seen.
That’s a real design flaw. Still unpatched at time of writing.
The hacking minigame is fine. The QTEs are optional and genuinely add tension when left on — the game handles failure gracefully and never breaks immersion. Turn them off only if you really can’t stand them.
Honest verdict: gameplay ranges from engaging to frustrating. Never the reason to play Dispatch. Never bad enough to stop you.
The Controversy — What Happened
This needs to be here because most sites skipped it entirely or buried it.
When episodes 7 and 8 released in November 2025, a scene involving Robert and Invisigal came under scrutiny. Players flagged that under certain conditions the romantic encounter read as non-consensual.
AdHob patched it within days. Official patch notes said “conditional outcome tuning to balance character relationships in episodes 7 & 8” — corporate language, but the actual change was substantive. The scene now requires conditions that actually reflect the relationship dynamic built across previous episodes.
AdHob handled it well. Small indie studio under serious financial pressure. Listened immediately. Moved fast. Didn’t get defensive. That matters.
The AdHob Story Is Part of the Experience
This keeps coming up because it genuinely changes how the game lands.
Dispatch is about people given a second chance who don’t quite know what to do with it. The Z-Team — villains trying to become heroes who aren’t sure they deserve to. Robert — a hero without his defining purpose, trying to figure out who he is without the suit.
And AdHob Studio is a team of developers who watched Telltale collapse, built something new from almost nothing, went six months without paychecks, nearly folded — and released one of the best games of the year.
That’s not a coincidence. The themes are too specific, too personal for this to be accidental.
Dispatch is what happens when the people making a game are genuinely living the story they’re trying to tell.
The Episodic Format
Each episode runs about 45 minutes. Ends on a cliffhanger. All eight available now.
Binging it in one session is completely possible — probably the best way to go in cold. But worth knowing: the community experience of watching it release weekly, comparing notes, trading theories — that’s gone. Launch players got something you can’t get now.
Not a reason to skip it. Just context.
Is Dispatch Worth It?
It sold four million copies. 97% recommended on OpenCritic. Won Steam’s Outstanding Story-Rich Game of 2025.
The dispatching minigame needed more polish. No chapter select is genuinely annoying. Choices don’t reshape the story the way Telltale’s best work did.
None of that matters by episode 3.
By then you’re not playing a game. You’re watching people you actually care about try to figure themselves out. And you’re making small decisions that feel weirdly personal — not because they change the plot, but because they’re about who Robert is and what he stands for.
That’s the whole thing. And it works.
Start episode one. You’ll know by episode two if it’s for you.
It probably is.
9/10
FAQ
Is Dispatch worth buying in 2026?
Yes. At $29.99 for eight episodes of some of the best writing and voice acting in any game this year — it’s absolutely worth it. Especially now that all episodes are available and you don’t have to wait between releases.
Is Dispatch more of a show or a game?
Both. The presentation is closer to a prestige animated series than a traditional game. But the choice system, dispatching mechanic, and QTEs make it feel meaningfully interactive in ways a show can’t replicate.
Do choices matter in Dispatch?
They don’t change the overall plot. But they shape relationships and character outcomes in ways that accumulate meaningfully. It’s about authoring how you experience the story — not rewriting it.
How long is Dispatch?
Around 6-8 hours for a full playthrough. Eight episodes, roughly 45 minutes each.
What platforms is Dispatch on?
PC via Steam and PS5 — released October 22, 2025. Nintendo Switch and Switch 2 versions launched January 28, 2026. Xbox Series X/S is coming summer 2026.
Will there be a Dispatch Season 2?
Nothing confirmed but AdHob have strongly hinted at it. Four million copies sold makes it hard to imagine they don’t. The ending sets up more story clearly.
