Dispatch review: eight episodes and the biggest surprise of the year

I started Dispatch out of politeness. Twenty minutes to see what the superhero comedy everyone wrote about last year actually was, then off. Six hours later the credits of episode eight rolled and I was sitting there with a feeling I had not had in a long time: a shame it is over.

The last time that happened was in 2015, with Tales from the Borderlands. Turns out it was not a coincidence. Nick Herman, one of the directors of Dispatch, directed that game at Telltale, and Pierre Shorette wrote it. Both left and founded AdHoc.

The first five minutes are a revenge story, and then it is not

Robert Robertson III is a third generation superhero with no powers at all. All he has is a combat suit his grandfather built. In the prologue he tracks down his father's killer, and beyond that I will only repeat what the store page already says: the suit is destroyed, the career ends, and the hero takes a job as a dispatcher.

A story that opens as revenge turns out, two episodes later, to be about something else entirely. That is the best trick in the script: you are shown the genre you came for, and it is swapped out while you are looking somewhere else. By episode eight it is clear the game was always about work, about the people doing that work, and about what management does to them.

What you actually do at that desk

Half the time you sit at the console of the Superhero Dispatch Network. Calls light up on a map of Los Angeles, you have eight former villains under you whom management reclassified as heroes, and you decide who goes where.

The other half is conversations with dialogue options and a timer. That is the whole game.

Taken apart, it is a simple machine

Here is the thing that normally sinks a game in reviews. Mechanically Dispatch is very simple. The dispatch board is a set of sliders: read three lines of requirements, look at the pentagon, throw two suitable people at it, wait, collect the result. There is no depth there, and after three hours you will be assigning calls without looking.

The hacking minigame that tries to break up the routine is, honestly, filler. You guide a ball along wires, dodge the antivirus, hit arrows on time. IGN took a swing at it too, and I am not going to defend it.

Normally a paragraph like that is followed by a verdict. There will not be one, because judging this game on its mechanics is like judging a TV series for having too few buttons.

What carries it is the presentation

Dispatch looks like a good adult animated series, and that is not a figure of speech: in April 2026 it won the BAFTA for animation. Plus a BAFTA for audio. Plus a BAFTA for a supporting performance.

The numbers the studio put on its own site explain where that came from: 495 pages of script, 356 minutes of finished scenes, 809 people in the credits. That is eight episodes released in pairs on Wednesdays between 22 October and 12 November 2025, and in running time they are closer to a full season of television than to an evening with a game.

Nothing to wait for now, by the way. It is all out. Two evenings, back to back.

The voices are worth the original audio

Robert is voiced by Aaron Paul, the Jesse Pinkman of Breaking Bad. I was afraid this would be a celebrity hired for a line on the poster. It is the opposite: he carries the whole part, including the stretches where the character has nothing to say and simply has to breathe into the microphone in a way that tells you how bad things are. The British academy nominated him for a leading role, and NAVGTR gave him the win in its comedy category.

The BAFTA for a supporting role went to Jeffrey Wright as Chase, also known as Track Star. Around them are Laura Bailey, Erin Yvette and Matthew Mercer, and half the Z-Team is voiced by internet people: jacksepticeye, MoistCr1TiKaL, Alanah Pearce. A cast list like that usually means trouble. Not here.

You remember every one of them by name

Eight subordinates and not one of them is filler. Sonar is a man bat hybrid with a Harvard degree and a cocaine habit in recovery, in a suit and tie. Punch Up is an Irish carnival strongman who traded half his height to a sorceress for the strength of ten men. Coupe is a former ballerina and a former assassin. Golem is simply enormous.

Malevola is her own story: a half demoness with a sword who also happens to be Sonar's sponsor at Narcotics Anonymous. She has less screen time than anyone else on the team and, going by what people draw, cosplay and ask for in a sequel, more affection than all of them. I am standing in that queue too.

The jokes land

The humour is office humour, and that is the whole point. Superheroes here sit through stand-ups, fight over parking spaces and collect warnings from HR. The dialogue options are regularly funnier than whatever you end up picking, which is why I kept reading all three before clicking.

One warning: this is an adult comedy and it does not hold back. If that is not for you, it is genuinely not for you.

The upset of the year, and I mean that literally

Now the part that makes me call Dispatch the biggest surprise of its year.

AdHoc Studio was founded in 2018 by four people out of Telltale. Dispatch began as a live action interactive series, production was due to start in March 2020, and then everything on the planet shut down. The project went on a shelf. It came back in 2022 as an animated game. In May 2024 the funding was pulled mid development and the studio decided to finish the thing anyway. In December that year Dispatch was revealed at The Game Awards with no publisher deal behind it.

Then the numbers. One million copies by 3 November 2025, twelve days after release. Two million players by 20 November. More than four million now, according to the studio itself. The developers told GamesIndustry.biz they were on course to beat a three year sales target in three months.

The awards followed: a Steam Award for the best story rich game, three BAFTAs, four NAVGTR wins, six DICE nominations. Metacritic sits at 87 on PC and 89 on PS5, and 97 percent of critics on OpenCritic recommend it.

Where you can see the money ran out

You can see it. Not in the middle, but around the edges.

None of it ruins the experience, but every item is a reminder that this game was finished without money. I feel a bit sorry for it.

What it runs on and which version to buy

Since we are a hardware site, here is the good news: Dispatch runs on anything. Official requirements from the Steam page:

The GTX 960 is a 2015 card. If you have an old box sitting around for browsing, Dispatch will start on it. I also checked the Steam Deck status through Valve's own compatibility endpoint: category 3, Verified, every test passed. For a handheld this is the ideal shape of game, one episode fits neatly into one charge, and the rest of what fits is in our list of the best games for the Steam Deck.

Versions are messier. On PC, PS5 and Xbox Series the game is intact. The Switch release in January 2026 arrived with scenes cut and no way to turn the censorship off, the studio pointed at Nintendo's content criteria, Nintendo replied that it does not alter third party content, and mass refunds followed. In June 2026 the HR Violations update restored most of the material and added optional censorship settings. Even so, the physical edition announcement from 25 August 2026 still carries an AdHoc footnote saying some Switch content differs from the original. If you want the whole thing, buy it on PC, PlayStation or Xbox.

The Steam price on 2 September 2026 is 28.99 euro, currently 20 percent off at 23.19. Physical editions have been up for pre-order since 25 August: 49.99 dollars for the standard deluxe, 59.99 for the SteelBook, consoles only.

Will there be a second season

Officially there is none. In November 2025 the founders said they were considering it, Aaron Paul publicly volunteered for more, and in May 2026 Nick Herman said the team wants to keep developing the characters and the universe, without anything concrete. In parallel, since July 2025 AdHoc has had a deal with Critical Role Productions for Dispatch merchandise, a tabletop game and an animated series.

So the universe is alive and a second season has not been promised by anyone. I am waiting for it and, judging by how many people are still drawing Malevola, I am not waiting alone.

If Dispatch leaves you wanting to build a machine for something heavier, we have a fresh roundup of graphics cards under 300 euro. Although, again, for this particular game whatever you already own will do.

Our verdict

9.5

Story and characters 10

Presentation and animation 10

Voice acting 10

Gameplay systems 8

Good Stuff Eight episodes that play like a good television season Aaron Paul and Jeffrey Wright give it everything All eight of your misfits are memorable Runs on a 2015 graphics card and is Steam Deck Verified

Bad Stuff The dispatch board is simple and repeats itself by episode six The hacking minigame is filler A couple of story threads end without a payoff On Switch part of the content still differs from the original

Summary

The mechanics are simple and the presentation is so good you stop caring. The surprise of its year and a reason to want a second season.