Story-based adventure titles don’t usually grab me the way they used to back in the golden age of Telltale Games titles. But every once in a while, one shows up and reminds me how powerful reactive storytelling can be. Dispatch is one of those titles. It’s funny, heartfelt and surprisingly tense, and it hooked me so completely that I played through multiple story paths just to see how much freedom the game actually gives you. The answer, thankfully, is a lot.
Dispatch is available for the PlayStation 5 and the PC through Steam, and the premise alone is enough to pull you in. You play as a former superhero who once wore an advanced tech suit that helped them to stand shoulder to shoulder with the city’s elite defenders. But when Dispatch begins, your suit is broken beyond repair, and your powers are gone. You’re basically just a normal person now, working shifts as a coordinator for the Superhero Dispatch Network’s (SDN) weakest squad, the Z-Team. They’re not exactly the Avengers. They’re all reformed villains of varying enthusiasm and stability, and wrangling this mess of their egos, grudges and questionable moral compasses becomes your full-time job.
It’s a brilliant setup because it flips the superhero fantasy on its head. In Dispatch, you’re the only non-powered person in the room, but you’re also the only responsible one, charged with sending the actual superheroes out to save the day. And most of them don’t respect you at first. Some barely listen to you at all. That dynamic creates constant friction, but also constant opportunities, because the relationships in Dispatch matter. A lot.
Told over a series of eight lengthy episodes, much of Dispatch plays out like a modern evolution of the classic Telltale formula. You hold conversations, choose how to respond and watch characters react instantly. That familiar “They will remember that” style of feedback is alive and well here, but unlike many titles that use it, choices in Dispatch genuinely shift the story. Plotlines branch, loyalties shift and romantic routes can either blossom or implode depending on how you choose to talk with people.
Both romance options in Dispatch are compelling in completely different ways. Blond Blazer is upbeat, heroic and earnest while secretly hiding a lot of insecurity. She is also a true superhero, charged with managing SDN and making sure the company maintains its reputation and stays afloat. Meanwhile, Invisigal starts the game firmly in the “reformed only because she has to be” category. Over time, you can help guide Invisigal toward becoming a better person or to lean into her chaotic tendencies, and the game supports both approaches with impressive nuance. It’s easily some of the best relationship writing I’ve seen in a superhero title.
But the real surprise is how fun the dispatching system is. Between story scenes, you’ll sit at your terminal answering frantic calls for help and playing out your dispatching job in a unique realtime strategy type environment. Each mission demands specific hero traits like strength, charisma, intelligence, endurance or speed. Sending the right member of the Z Team, or pairing two or more heroes together for bonus synergy, increases the odds of success. But randomness ensures that nothing is ever guaranteed. Even a perfect match can fail, while a desperate last-minute guess might succeed against all logic.
Calls come in fast, and your crew is constantly busy. Someone might be flying across town while someone else might be exhausted, sulking or refusing to take orders because you annoyed them in the cafeteria earlier. You do the best you can with what you have, which keeps the pressure high and the tension fun. Heroes gain experience too, so over time you can shape the Z-Team into a slightly less chaotic group of crimefighters.
I tried to build out my team with rounded skills so that I had some fighters and some thinkers, which made later missions less crazy since I was more likely to have someone available for almost any type of call. Heroes can also unlock major powers at higher levels if you send them out on enough missions, so it’s good to try and keep everyone busy.
There’s also a hacking minigame in Dispatch that lets you remotely unlock doors or assist with active missions. It’s at its best when tied tightly to story moments. At other times it slightly interrupts the flow, but it never drags long enough to become a problem. The minigames get harder and more complex over time too, but thankfully you can configure the Dispatch settings to give you unlimited tries, so most players can eventually get through all of the hacking missions even if they don’t really like them.
I have to mention the voice cast specifically because the acting in Dispatch is phenomenal. Aaron Paul of Breaking Bad fame brings warmth and vulnerability to your suit-deprived protagonist. Laura Bailey’s Invisigal easily steals scenes with sardonic humor that slowly softens as she warms up to you. Erin Yvette gives Blond Blazer an earnest charm that makes her interactions feel just as rewarding. The rest of Dispatch’s cast is just as good too, without a weak performance among them.
But Dispatch’s real strength is how much heart it has. For a game about coordinating superpowered chaos from a cluttered desk, it delivers genuine emotional impact. Characters grow. Choices ripple. Relationships feel earned. And Dispatch constantly reinforces that heroism isn’t about powers or flashy tech. It’s about how you treat people, how you lead and how you manage to find hope even when you’re sitting in a crappy cubical directing the world’s least impressive superhero team.
Dispatch is one of the most entertaining story adventures I’ve played in years. It’s lighthearted without being shallow, choice-driven without being gimmicky and surprisingly touching when it wants to be. You may not have your suit anymore, but the world still needs saving, and the Z-Team won’t survive without someone steady at the helm.
In Dispatch, I was more than happy to be that someone.