Dispatch: How Telltale Veterans Turned a Superhero Call Centre Into a 4-Million Hit

Superheroes save the day. Someone else has to answer the phone. That is the clever premise behind Dispatch, a game where the hero is not the one punching villains but the one deciding who gets sent to punch them.

Made by AdHoc Studio, a team founded by veterans of Telltale Games, Ubisoft and Night School Studio, Dispatch launched in weekly two-episode drops starting on 22 October 2025 for PC and PlayStation 5. All eight episodes were out by 12 November 2025, exactly a year ago today. It sold 1 million copies in ten days, 2 million in a month and more than 4 million in total, and in April 2026 it won three BAFTA Games Awards.

The studio: Telltale's children grow up

AdHoc was founded in 2018 by Michael Choung, Nick Herman, Dennis Lenart and Pierre Shorette. Several of them came from Telltale, the studio that made choice-driven episodic games a genre of their own with series such as The Walking Dead. Others came from Ubisoft and from Night School, the team behind Oxenfree.

Their pitch was a familiar format with a fresh twist: a story-first adventure, released in episodes, where your choices shape relationships and outcomes, but with a management game sitting right in the middle of it.

In July 2025, three months before launch, AdHoc announced a partnership with Critical Role Productions, the company behind the famous tabletop role-playing web series. The deal helped fund the final stages of Dispatch and set up a future game in the Critical Role universe, along with merchandise, tabletop projects and an animated series.

The story: a hero without his suit

You play Robert Robertson III, once the armoured hero Mecha Man, whose mech suit has been destroyed. Unable to fight, he takes a job at the Superhero Dispatch Network, or SDN, in an alternate Los Angeles. His assignment: run the Z-Team, a squad of former supervillains trying to reform.

Robert is voiced by Aaron Paul, best known as Jesse Pinkman in Breaking Bad. The supporting cast includes Laura Bailey as Invisigal, Jeffrey Wright as Track Star, Erin Yvette as Blonde Blazer, Matthew Mercer as Shroud and Travis Willingham as Phenomaman. YouTubers and streamers jacksepticeye, MoistCr1TiKaL and Alanah Pearce, plus filmmaker Joel Haver, also lend their voices.

The tone is workplace comedy with real heart. The Z-Team bickers, sulks and occasionally betrays you, and the drama comes as much from office politics as from explosions.

The game: a call centre with consequences

Dispatch alternates between two modes. In story scenes, you pick dialogue choices that shape how characters see you, the classic Telltale formula. In dispatch shifts, you sit at the SDN map, watch emergencies pop up across the city and send heroes to deal with them, judging each by their stats and traits and juggling cooldowns as they return tired or injured.

That management layer is what sets Dispatch apart. You are not just choosing what Robert says to a teammate; you are choosing whether to trust that teammate with a dangerous call. A hacking minigame with path puzzles and quick-time events adds a third rhythm.

The two halves feed each other. A hero you snapped at in a story scene is still on your roster during the next shift, and a disastrous call can colour the conversation that follows. It is a simple loop, but it makes the Z-Team feel like colleagues rather than characters, and it gives every episode a reason to replay it with different choices.

What critics and award juries said

The reviews were consistently strong. Beyond the 9s from IGN, Game Informer and Nintendo Life, PC Gamer gave it 8.9/10, and GameSpot, Push Square and France's Gamekult each gave it 8/10. Award juries noticed too: Dispatch was nominated for Game of the Year and Adventure Game of the Year at the 29th D.I.C.E. Awards, for Best Debut, Best Narrative and Social Impact at the Game Developers Choice Awards, and for Game of the Year at The Steam Awards 2025, where players voted.

By the numbers

• 8 episodes, released two at a time over 4 weeks
• 1 million copies in the first 10 days
• 2 million in the first month
• 4 million+ copies in total
• 89 on Metacritic for PS5, 87 for PC and 85 for Switch 2
• 97% of critics recommend it on OpenCritic
• 3 BAFTA wins: Animation, Audio Achievement and Supporting Performer

Awards and a Switch controversy

Critics loved it, with 9/10 from IGN, Game Informer and Nintendo Life. Dispatch won Outstanding Story-Rich Game at The Steam Awards 2025 and was nominated for Best Debut Indie Game and Players' Voice at The Game Awards 2025. At the NAVGTR Awards, Aaron Paul and Matthew Mercer both won comedy performance prizes.

The biggest night came at the 22nd BAFTA Games Awards in April 2026, where Dispatch won Animation, Audio Achievement and Performer in a Supporting Role for Jeffrey Wright as Chase, the hero known as Track Star.

The road to Nintendo was bumpier. When Dispatch arrived on Nintendo Switch and Switch 2 on 28 January 2026, with all eight episodes at once, it shipped with nudity, sexual content and crude gestures censored by default. AdHoc said this was due to Nintendo's content criteria. On 17 June 2026, a free update cheekily named "HR Violations" added optional censorship settings and changed some of the censored material. The Xbox Series X|S version followed on 29 July 2026, and physical editions for Switch, Switch 2, PS5 and Xbox Series X were announced for late 2026.

Why it matters

WGC's take: For years, the industry treated the death of Telltale in 2018 as proof that episodic storytelling games could not survive. Dispatch argues the opposite. The format was never the problem; what it needed was a sharper hook, a stronger game layer and a realistic release schedule. By releasing the whole season in just four weeks, AdHoc kept the excitement of episodes without the long, anxious waits that frustrated Telltale's fans.

Dispatch also shows the power of community-driven casting. Pairing Hollywood actors with Critical Role performers and popular YouTubers gave the game an audience before it even launched. And AdHoc did all of this as its own publisher, without a large company's marketing machine behind it, which makes four million copies even more impressive for a first game.

What's next

Is there a season 2? Not officially. In November 2025, co-founders Nick Herman and Pierre Shorette said a second season was under consideration, and Aaron Paul has said he would love to return. In May 2026, Herman said the team wanted to explore more characters and stories in Dispatch's world. For now, the game is available on Steam for PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, Nintendo Switch and Switch 2.

If you enjoyed Dispatch's mix of comedy and heart, try Clair Obscur: Expedition 33, the other breakout story-driven debut of 2025 (read our feature), or the darkly funny mystery Urban Myth Dissolution Center (here).