If you told me a year ago that Dispatch, an episodic choice-based narrative, would be considered one of the best games of 2025, I would look at you like you were crazy or at least be highly skeptical. In the 2010s, choice-based narrative and episodic games rose to prominence. Two developers stood out above the rest for their story-driven narratives: Deck Nine and Telltale. In that time period, Life is Strange, The Wolf Among Us, The Walking Dead, and Tales from the Borderlands were beloved amongst many despite occasionally having controversial topics in their games.
Despite most of the episodic games being well-received, Telltale would ultimately declare bankruptcy in 2018; many speculate that the studio had taken on too many projects and expensive IPs at one time. Alongside long release windows, many would lose interest in episodic games. Since the closing of Telltale originally, most episodic games have received average reviews; games such as New Tales from the Borderlands and Tell Me Why came out and were easily forgotten within a few months.
So, does Dispatch break the episodic curse caused by Telltale Games and become Legendary, or does it fall into the uninspired superhero genre? Find out in our Dispatch review.
Dispatch
Developer: AdHoc Studio, Critical Role
Publisher: AdHoc Studio
Platforms: PC (Steam) and PlayStation 5
Release Date: October 22nd, 2025 (Episode 1)
Players 1
Price: $29.99
Dispatch is the story of Robert Robertson (Mechaman), a former superhero whose life has been altered drastically while trying to get revenge for his father’s death. After walking into a trap set by Shroud, Robert’s mechanized suit is severely damaged, and the key component that powers it has disappeared. With no actual powers, Robert must figure out what to do with his life now that his dream of revenge is out of reach.
While down in the dumps, Robert picks a fight with a group of petty thieves and gets jumped for running his mouth. Robert is then saved by a superhero known as Blonde Blazer, who has an interesting proposition for him. Things take a slight turn when said proposition turns into a job offer, not what we were expecting after leaving a bar.
As the newest recruit to SDN, Robert must figure out how to get a group of former villains to work together while hiding his secret identity. As you can probably expect, the original interactions go poorly, you might even set someone on fire, hit them with a chair, or even have your life threatened. Early on in the game, you are required to make difficult choices that will have lingering effects. These choices will determine who you romance, who you make an enemy of, and who will potentially die.
In Dispatch‘s story, there are a variety of options to choose from with multiple potential endings. Depending on your choices and the censorship filters, you can get a variety of different experiences. The main story features six possible varying endings where the player can get revenge, get the girl, or be left empty-handed entirely.
As far as the story goes, it does not fall into the regurgitated superhero trope, and each character in the game is relatable in some way or another. The dialogue is topical and features multiple pop culture references without being exhausting or feeling out of place. While each choice can provide you with a new set of dialogue and potential comedic moments, some options are better than others. If you choose the “wrong” option, you might miss an awkward kiss, a bromance, or someone getting shot in the head.
A majority of the gameplay in Dispatch revolves around the player’s ability to manage the reforming villains and send them out to help the citizens of Torrance and Los Angeles. This gameplay mechanic is primarily a management sim where certain anti-heroes are more equipped for a task than others; in fact, sending the right character to a mission can have you pass it by choosing their unique character option.
After gaining enough experience on missions, the SDN Phoenix team (villains/anti-heroes) will level up, and the player must assign attribute points to each character. Each character in the game has a counterpart that they synergize with, and once the team reaches max synergy, they will receive a boost to potential mission success. If the player does well enough in each episode with their dispatching, they can receive a bonus stat point to assign to a Phoenix team member as they see fit.
Outside of the Dispatch management sim gameplay, there will be moments where the player must participate in a hacking mini-game, which is fairly straightforward, but it is possible to fail your first time experiencing different variations. Failing a hack can mean potential injury to the team or death of citizens. The game does feature a setting that can help you with hacking.
Outside of your day job, there will be moments when you need to participate in important events. Depending on which option you chose when setting up the game, you will either have interactive QTEs or cinematic moments to watch. These interactive moments can make or break the game experience. Watching the cutscenes can be fine if you have horrible reflexes, but in cinematic mode, the visuals feel slowed down and overly dramatic.
The game features a few setting options that can change how the player experiences it. In the general settings, the player can adjust how they want to experience cutscenes: do they want to just watch them, or interact with them?
The player can filter out profanity, licensed music, and dirty images. If the hacking in the game feels difficult, the player can make it so that they have the ability to hack as many times as they need to in order to pass.
For visual accessibility options, the game features subtitles. The player can choose to adjust the subtitles’ size, color, show the name of the character speaking, and even have a background behind the text. The game features three different color blind mode options: Deuteranopia, Protanopia, and Tritanopia; the player can adjust the intensity of the colorblind settings.
Although the game has some accessibility options, there were a few that we would have liked to see. In other episodic narrative games, the game featured a streamer community mode that allows their audience to vote on options; Dispatch does not feature this option.
We would have also liked to see the ability to extend the timers for decisions and QTE interactions. The fact that the game does not have the ability to freeze QTE interactions as an accessibility setting seems a bit odd to us. Our final nitpick would be the fact that the game doesn’t have a reference sheet for what words mean when having to respond to dispatch calls. Oftentimes, it feels like two stats might be needed for the same word.
While Dispatch might revolve around superhero actions, a majority of the game takes a darker tone and blurs the line between what makes a hero, a hero. The dialog and banter between the characters throughout will draw you in, and there are multiple moments that will make you laugh and potentially even cry. The voice acting in the game will make you feel each character’s emotions, with even the villains feeling relatable.
Dispatch has a fun story that catches you off guard but doesn’t drag, feel stale, or even cliche as the story progresses. The game does have an issue where a team member can get stuck after completing a mission, making it impossible to dispatch them on another one, and we did have a few instances where we completed all missions but were stuck in the dispatch screen.
The cinematic cutscenes feel like they are a secondary thought when you do not have the QTE interactions on. Otherwise, the game is quite enjoyable, and you will feel like the money you spent on the game was worth it, no matter how much you spent.
If you are debating about picking up Dispatch, just pick it up; you’ll be glad you did. The release of episodes within a close window is what kept players’ attention and made them come back for more immediately, rather than waiting weeks.
Dispatch was reviewed on PC using a code provided by AdHoc Studio. Additional information about Niche Gamer’s review/ethics policy is here. Dispatch is now available for the PC and PlayStation 5.
