Platform(s): PC (version reviewed), PlayStation 5
Genre: Adventure, Simulation, Superhero

We’ve all played superhero games before, be it linear action titles or open-world sandboxes like your inFamouses and Spider-Man license tie-ins. But what about being in the shoes of an ex-hero who is tasked with being a superhero handler? One filled with former supervillains and with you giving them some tough love as someone with actual superhero experience?

That is DISPATCH’s premise in a nutshell, a new adventure game from AdHoc Studio, comprised of former Telltale Games developers. That means you’re getting the cinematic story experience with some gameplay attached to it, coupled with story choices that make you look good or just an embittered asshole.

Hero Time

You control Robert Robertson, a former superhero who goes by Mecha Man. After a botched superhero gig and his piloted mecha totalled, he gets a second leash at superheroic life (sort of) by being given a job as a handler for a superhero dispatch agency called SDN. Problem is, you’re given a group of former supervillains to do superheroics with as you’re the key person in making the company’s rehabilitation project work.

This being a workplace comedy drama hybrid title, expect office hijinks, quips and Marvel Cinematic Universe-like banter aplenty (for good or ill), and a few dick and sex jokes or five. You also get some solid characterisation and animation work from AdHoc Studio, who seem to have the budget and time to make this episodic game immersive and a treat to binge through.

The story is made all the more engrossing with top-tier actors like Aaron Paul (Breaking Bad, BoJack Horseman) and Jeffrey Wright (The Last of Us, The Batman) lending their voices alongside the Critical Role crew like Laura Bailey. The latter plays my favourite superhero in the game Invisigirl, a former villain who is sassy and violent, but clearly needs help from you to turn her life around.

If anything, no expense was spared in making this combination of premises all the more palatable and fun to experience and listen through. I just binged through all the available four episodes for this review, and I can tell you I was anything but bored. Most of the jokes landed, and the voice-work is done with love and care. A story-driven title like this wouldn’t work without immaculate vocal acting, and thankfully DISPATCH delivers on that front.

Into The Breach

That’s all well and good, but what about the gaming part? That’s where the title comes in: as a handler, you dispatch superheroes to complete tasks like stop a bank robbery, or protect a person of interest, or go talk at a superhero seminar and charm the pants off of the audience. Each of your superheroes has different stats pertaining to the situation: a bank robbery that requires foiling will be successful with a hero with great Attack and Valor stats, while a PR stint would be better with a charismatic superhero.

Sometimes, you are even waylaid with a disruption event where you have to dish out input on containing the escalating situation. These all succeed depending on your assigned heroes’ trait; when you need to give an impromptu pep talk in a middle of a firefight, you better hope your assigned hero has some Charisma points to beat the check, otherwise that gig is a bust.

You’re not given much time to think on these assignments as they have a time limit, so you have to be quick on your toes in sending the right hero or heroes for the job. Some jobs let you put in more than one hero, letting you boost the success rate of the gig. And the more jobs they do, they get to level up and get permanent buffs to their stats.

During missions, you’re even given hacking minigames to complete. The ex-Mecha Man can also use his tech skills to hack into security or any form of networking. In gaming terms, you just guide your blue icon, hit the correct directional inputs for places that need activating or hacking, and then finish the segment by holding the left mouse button and dragging your mouse down when prompted. You get a few simple hacking rounds at first, but then you get more challenges like guesswork inputs, nodes that have one part of a password you need for a future barricade, and red security nodes that chase you down and reset your progress when they catch you. Some of these are optional, but they do help make your dispatch missions for your superheroes easy.

These gameplay portions make up half of the DISPATCH experience, and it’s pretty fun doing this juggling act of sending heroes, waiting for their Rest period to end so that they can tackle jobs at the last minute, and figuring out which stats to maximize for each hero. The game’s story does have certain beats that can’t change; without mentioning spoilers: there will be instances where you need to make roster cuts, and you will need to add in less-than-competent heroes to fill in gaps. These not only present extra challenges in your dispatching and management skills, but also elevate the plot and make you care for the roster. Whether you hate Flambae’s cocksure attitude, or adore Punch Up’s accent and temperament, you’ll definitely notice each character’s trait and colourful personality brimming through DISPATCH’s seams.

Bulletproof

There’s a ton of potential and promise in DISPATCH’s first 2 episodes. It sets up an engaging premise and situation with two familiar tropes: superhero shows and office workplace comedies. The superhero dispatching gameplay is clearly a simpler version of an emergency response simulation title by design, but it is fun to play through, especially with the witty banter that goes on as you keep putting up figurative and literal fires in the city. The cinematics and animation are beautiful and serve their purpose in being half an animated series of the streaming service variety, and the voice-work and acting are top-notch.

Let’s hope the next 4 episodes follow that trajectory and hammer us visual novel and story-heavy cinematic game fans with surprises here and there. After all, this is a title from ex-Telltale Games devs, and they’re usually good at delivering what fans want: engaging stories, lovely visuals to back up the action, great writing for characters, top-notch voice acting, and some form of interactivity and choice-making that will keep you on your toes. AdHoc Studios is on a roll here with this new superhero story.

Final Score (For Now): 80/100

Review copy provided by publisher; it contains the first four episodes. The final review for this eight-episode game will be out later in November.