Review - Dispatch
"I'm not done saving you yet"
October 22, 2025 to November 12, 2025 - AdHoc Studio
Interactive Adventure - Nick Herman, Dennis Lenart, Chris Rebbert
PS5, PC
After his powered suit Mecha Man explodes on a mission, Robert Robertson goes into a dispatch job for superheroes. However, his team is part of a program for former supervillains seeking reform, making them hard to manage.
Characters, World, and Presentation
In the world of Dispatch, superheroes have been corporatized and are part of the SDN (Superhero Dispatch Network), answering calls similar to the police. You play and make decisions as Robert Robertson III, voiced by Aaron Paul, part of a family legacy in which members fly a suit known as Mecha Man. In a revenge mission following his father’s death at the hands of supervillain Shroud, the suit explodes, and Robert enters a state of depression. He’s approached by an extremely popular superhero named Blonde Blazer, who was given Robert's contact by a family friend, Chase (or Trackstar), to handle dispatch work for the service. In return, Robert can secure funds to rebuild Mecha Man and pursue Shroud again. Unfortunately for Robert, he has to manage a group of former supervillains who entered a reform program, making them difficult to manage.
First of all, let’s talk about the best part of this game, the writing. From the dialogue to the pacing to the character arcs, this is some of the best writing as a whole that I’ve seen from a video game. The humor is off the charts. You don’t really think about comedy when you play a video game. Sure, there are moments of levity and comedic spots in games I’ve played, but pretty much this entire game is comedic and it’s genuinely so damn funny. I can’t think of a time I played a game and laughed along as I played. The writers deserve a lot of praise for this. Of course, it works so well because of the characters.
The character ensemble here is among the best, in a year that’s stacked with excellent ensembles. The Z-Team, or former supervillains trying to reform, argue with one another and constantly make fun of each other, which fits perfectly given their past. Now the group being voiced by influencers is a little cringe-inducing. I have mixed feelings about influencers. I roll my eyes with them, but I’m also not necessarily jealous of them and am willing to give them a shot in areas like this. However, when you see names like MoistCr1TiKaL, Alanah Pearce, and jacksepticeye, I can see someone rolling their eyes. The group isn’t just there for comedy either. As the season goes on, you know the team evolves and embraces the idea of becoming heroes, while still clinging to some old habits, which is, once again, excellent writing.
You have two friends in the service who help you through the game. First up is Chase, a former family friend who was a speedster hero, but he aged rapidly as a side effect of using his powers, making him look 80 even though he’s 39. Voiced by Jeffrey Wright, I can easily say Chase is possibly the funniest character in gaming history. He was probably a bit too harsh to the group, but considering his past as a superhero, it makes sense. There’s also a scene with Chase here that took me aback by how emotional it was, so he’s not just there for laughs. There’s also Royd, who has an awkward introduction (and I’m disturbed when I saw the stats that agreed to that fist bump), but then goes on to be that “big teddy bear” character archetype.
Lastly, there are the two romance options, Blonde Blazer and Invisigal. Blonde Blazer, voiced by Erin Yvette, recruits you into the network and quickly develops a crush on you from the first episode (even though you learn it’s complicated as soon as). I felt like the first half of the season really pushed you towards her. She’s the stable, more put-together option, and she has a moment where you get to learn about her as a person who adds to her layers. Then we have Invisigal, voiced by Laura Bailey, who is chaotic and unpredictable. She’s part of the group and a former supervillian, and she has a character arc where she doubts she can become a hero. The second half HEAVILY leans into her, to a point that I do think it’s a criticism I have to bring up. I chose Blonde Blazer, but she semi-disappears through the second half, before the last episode, and Invisigal takes the stage. Although an argument can be made that the writers were playing with our heads, especially us guys, and that your decisions reveal the type of man you are when it comes to women. It’s obvious Invisigal is the immediate satisfaction, thinking with the wrong head (guys know what I mean) choice and Blazer is the more patient and investment choice. Now, that doesn’t mean I think Invisigal is a bad choice, as her arc does make sense whether you pick her as an interest or see yourself as her mentor. I actually see her as an interesting character and was invested in seeing her come out as a better person in the end.
Gameplay, Design, and Sound
The game is primarily a choose your own adventure interactive TV show, but it does have actual gameplay in the middle of it. The dispatching job is where most of the gameplay takes place. You get calls and have to figure out which members are best suited to those jobs. It took a bit of time, but I finally got the flow of it. That being said, and I’ll touch on this a little more in the next section, I do think at times it felt like a game of luck. As you do the dispatch sections, you’ll be able to level up your team. Each member has stats like intelligence, charisma, and combat, which you’ll want to upgrade to give you more options for sending them out on calls. At the end of each day, you'll get a score based on the calls you answered, and, outside of one time, I did, for the most part, do a good job.
You also have sections where you hack into systems around the city to help the team or civilians, and you do this by finding codes to enter by moving a ball on a grid. The hacking wasn’t bad, but there were a couple of times I got annoyed when they added enemies there to stop you, as they were too fast for my liking, given how the hacking is done.
Outside of that, you’ll primarily make choices. Now, I personally found the pace at which you made your dialogue and story choices to be too fast. While you can pause to make it easier on you, I do wish it didn’t do that and just waited until you made a choice, or at least the bar was much slower. There are also a few action sequences that require the use of quick time events. It wasn’t bad, but the final battle had me on edge because the prompts come out of nowhere and are never in the same place. You can turn them off, and I would highly suggest you do if you’re not great at those types of gameplay moments.
Lastly, we got the soundtrack, and it is damn good. I’ve been telling people 2025 isn’t just a year full of games, but also one full of amazing video game soundtracks. It is a lot of copyrighted music and needle drops, but the sound design and background score as a whole are top-notch.
Negatives
I hinted at these earlier, so I’ll go over them again. The romance options aren’t bad, but the second half feels so one-sided to Invisigal that it nearly made the Blonde Blazer option worthless. That’s not to say there aren’t good moments with Blazer, but since the story focuses on Invisigal’s arc so much, it makes it hard not to ignore that Robert can ideally get into a relationship with her. I think if the developers balanced the romances better, I wouldn’t feel that way. It also doesn’t help (again, guys know what I’m talking about) that there’s a pretty spicy moment with Invisigal that obviously plays with your head (potentially the wrong one lol).
Gameplay was hit or miss, although not necessarily bad. I had some jobs where I was confident I sent the right heroes, and it failed; that was particularly frustrating. Also, the final dispatch in the last episode is just straight up busting its ass to piss you off. I had to replay that part of the episode twice because it was just too much. I get it, it’s the end and a significant event was happening, but I think the difficulty balance on it was too much, and I almost just quit trying to come out good out of it.
Lastly, while more of a subjective point, as I said, some aren’t going to like the use of so many influencers on here. It did an eye roll from me at first, but I‘ll give them their due, they do a good job of forming into the characters.
Dispatch is genuinely one of the best well-written video games I've seen from a character and story standpoint. While I do wish the gameplay portions were better, it’s a new and interesting idea, and they mostly nail it. The characters are memorable, the soundtrack is amazing, and the entire game plays out as if you’re part of a quality superhero TV show. The voice cast nails it, the writers nail it, the music nails it, the humor absolutely nails it… Need I say more? I think everyone, no matter what type of gamer, should play this. It’s one of those games that comes around rarely and the hype is real. I hope we do get a second season because by the end of episode 8, I wasn’t ready to say goodbye to this world.
Awesome review, JM!
This sounds like an interesting concept. Thanks for the review and putting this one on my radar.
I had heard of it before, but never really looked into it.