Developer AdHoc Studio revealed its debut game, Dispatch, will release on October 22 for Steam and PlayStation 5.
Revealed at the 2024 Game Awards, the adventure title puts players in the shoes of Robbie Robertson, an ex-superhero who works at the Superhero Dispatch Network. As an SDN employee, Robbie deploys a team of supers to various crimes and events in the city, choosing which hero is best for the situation. Imagine Telltale’s The Walking Dead games mixed with some 9-1-1 (and superheroes, obviously), and you’ve got an idea of what to expect.
Similar to those Walking Dead titles, the game will be released episodically, but you’ll thankfully just have to wait a week for each new installment in the four-episode season. The game’s creative director explained the schedule helps it feel like “appointment gaming, but with the weekly cadence of a TV show. Episodic is a format that makes the story easy to slip into, easy to keep up with, and easy to share with friends.” And as a studio made up of former Walking Dead developers, they wanted to avoid months-long waits between episodes, a problem that’s plagued many episodic adventure games.
Beyond the premise, Dispatch has caught attention for its cast: Aaron Paul plays Robbie, and he’s joined by the likes of Critical Role alums Laura Bailey, Travis Willingham, and Matthew Mercer, along with Jeffrey Wright (The Batman) and YouTubers JackSepticEye and Cr1TiKaL. AdHoc released a demo over the summer that was pretty well-received, so much so that it’s already locked into a Critical Role game project.
Dispatch will cost you $30 upon release, or a $40 digital deluxe edition that covers the full season, a digital artbook, and four digital comics.
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