AdHoc Studio, risen from the ashes of Telltale Games, has made its mark with the studio’s first game, Dispatch. Working with the writers and directors from Tales from the Borderlands and The Wolf Among Us, as well as an extremely talented voice cast, Dispatch shows what can happen when you let a good team do good work.
Dispatch follows Robert Robertson, a mech-riding superhero who has lost access to his powered suit. Unable to continue work as a superhero, Robert begins instead to work at Superhero Dispatch Network, an emergency response agency that dispatches superheroes to wherever they are needed most. Robert’s job is to manage the Z-Team, a group of former supervillains who work as a unit within SDN.
Despite the superhero nature of the story, Dispatch is actually (at least in part) a workplace comedy. It follows the everyday lives of Robert and the Z-Team and explores how their drama affects their work as heroes. The story takes a very personal approach, focusing mainly on the characters and their relationships rather than a nefarious supervillain. Through this approach, players are made to empathize with Robert and the Z-Team’s struggles and find the good in each and every one of them, no matter how much they may stumble. Characters are treated as real people and the game works to portray them in that context; no character is an archetype, each more than just a sum of their powers. This approach makes Dispatch an extremely relatable and human story, even more than many of those that remain grounded in real life. Dispatch makes a world of mutants and masterminds feel realistic in a way that many other superhero stories fail to do.
Playing Dispatch is unlike most other games, as the majority of your time is spent watching animated scenes. The basis of the gameplay is making choices within these scenes to guide the story. Deciding who to talk to, who to support in an argument or what your favorite kind of donut is are all important choices to be made over the course of the game, and they all have rippling effects across the rest of the story. These choices make players engage with the very personal scope of the drama and create a story that is not only extremely immersive but also one that generates a great deal of empathy for the characters as a result.
The other kind of gameplay is experienced through quick-time events, or reaction-based button prompts. Unfortunately, they don’t add much to the game and can be distracting during important scenes. Fortunately, however, they can also be turned off if you so choose. Outside of these scenes, players respond to calls coming into SDN by dispatching members of the Z-Team. Each call has different parameters, and each member of the Z-Team has different jobs they are best at. During shifts, it is up to the player to manage the Z-Team and respond to calls as best they can. Shifts are good tests of time management and situational awareness that engage players and add to the story through contextualizing the work of Robert and the Z-Team.
Dispatch’s design is strong even beyond gameplay and story: The character designs are fun and distinct, the set design is realistic and colorful, and the sound design is immersive. The city of Los Angeles is fully realized and the characters, even though they’re superheroes, feel grounded in that world. The trained ear may spot differences between the recording studios used for certain actors, but the variances aren’t so obvious that it harms the overall experience. The soundtrack is strong as well, with a bold sound that evokes the feeling of old comic books while still grounding itself in the game’s more down-to-earth vibe. All aspects of the game work together to create an immersive experience, helping players place themselves in Robert’s shoes while engaging with the world presented to them.
Dispatch is an extremely quality product. Despite it being AdHoc’s first game, it is well produced, the voice cast is talented and the writing is some of the best of the year. This likely comes as no surprise given they worked with the people who previously made Telltale’s best games, but their return is absolutely triumphant. While Dispatch’s story focuses on a team of heroes in the Phoenix Program, the true phoenix is AdHoc studio. Without a doubt, they have made one of the best games in the Choices Matter genre. It has been some time since this team left Telltale, but it is quite clear their skills remain intact.
Dispatch can appeal to a large variety of players, even those who don’t typically play video games, because of how well the story, gameplay and characters work together to create a tapestry that makes full use of all its parts. If you are even a little interested in giving the game a shot, you absolutely should. Dispatch is the start of a new era for AdHoc studios, and a very good sign of things to come.
Daily Arts Writer Hudsen Mazurek can be reached at hudsen@umich.edu.
