Warning: Minor Spoilers for Dispatch
Created by ADHOC Studio, Dispatch is a choice-based narrative game where every decision shapes the story’s outcome. You play as Robert Robertson III — aka Mecha Man Blue — temporarily sidelined from superhero field work and working as a dispatcher at the Superhero Dispatch Network while his suit is repaired.
What initially appears to be a familiar choice-driven structure quickly reveals something more ambitious: Dispatch is less interested in moral binaries than in emotional truth.
As a dispatcher he’s responsible for coordinating villains-turned-superheroes in the field. The players job is to decide which heroes are best suited to each mission, carefully balancing their strengths and characters synergy to achieve success. Along the way play fun hacking mini-games to help the characters get an optimal outcome or secure SDN from hackers. Across eight episodes, you guide and shape these characters under your tutelage, getting to know them through sharp banter and genuine bonding moments. Alongside this, you also navigate Robert’s personal life — including the option to romance one of two characters, Blonde Blazer or Invisigal.
As with most choice-based games, each playthrough in Dispatch deviates based on the decisions you make. Typically, dialogue options in the genre fall neatly into three categories: good, bad, or neutral. Dispatch deliberately disrupts this formula.
At his core, Robert is a hero — albeit one wrapped in a snarky, caustic persona. The choices presented to the player reflect this complexity, Robert’s lines fall along a spectrum from genuine kindness to outright dickishness, rather than moral absolutes. Failure doesn’t come from choosing the “wrong” tone, but from moments where the game forces a more meaningful decision: being a hero versus being human. In these moments, you can fail not because you chose poorly, you fail because you didn’t listen.
This subversion of choice design is carried entirely by the strength of the writing, which trusts the player to engage with nuance rather than moral checklists.
The dialogue is layered with subtext, using banter to quietly expose history, power dynamics, and emotional fault lines between characters. I didn’t want to miss a single quip, one-liner, or flirtatious exchange. The voice acting is phenomenal. Aaron Paul delivers Robert with a caustic charisma that never obscures his vulnerability. Every character sounds immediately distinct — not just in accent, but in rhythm, tone, and emotional texture. You can infer a character’s history simply from how they speak, you can immediately understand a character’s personality and backstory. Complementing this is writing that feels genuinely engaging and realistic. I could honestly listen to these voices on repeat all day.
Even when accents proved challenging for me due to my auditory processing disorder, the subtitles — paired with strong visual and physical cues — ensured that meaning was never lost. The graphics combine 3D elements with 2D rendering techniques, resulting in a refined visual presentation that enhances depth and adds emphasis to key scenes.
The soundtrack does an excellent job of setting the mood and heightening tension, drawing you deeper into the world. The use of diegetic music — sounds that exist within the narrative and are heard by the characters themselves — makes the world feel inhabited and alive. Even after shutting the game down, it feels as though the world continues on without you. This is compiled with the fact that every episode gave me an immense sense of joy. I didn’t realise I had been starved for this emotion until I was reintroduced to it. In a world on the edge of dystopia, joy becomes an act of rebellion, and happiness a form of resistance. I wasn’t expecting this game to be such a unique experience. Mostly because of the constant warnings about Invisigal.
I went into Dispatch expecting to dislike Invisigal due to the negative press surrounding her. Instead, I grew genuinely fond of her — not romantically, but in a protective, almost sisterly way. Her crass humour and defensive bravado reminded me of my own adolescence: mistaking empowerment for self-degradation, calling yourself a “bitch” as rebellion while quietly internalising the harm. Her distrust of others — and herself — feels painfully real.
What impressed me most is that you don’t need to romance Invisigal to achieve a good ending. I genuinely believed flirting with her was required to keep her on the right path, but it isn’t. All she really needs is someone who believes in her.
Dispatch succeeds because it respects its characters — and the player — enough to allow growth without coercion. Romance is optional. Vulnerability is never punished. It’s a smart, humane experience that lingers long after the credits roll — not because it demands joy, but because it quietly reminds you that choosing it is still possible.
I would highly recommend buying this game. At this point, I’ve spent nearly 40 hours playing, and they’ve been some of the most joy-filled hours of my life.