Dispatch doesn’t mess around. Within the first ten minutes, it’s dropped umpteen F-Bombs, given you the option to drop an informant off a balcony, and shown you a supervillain’s luminous dick. Marvel’s Avengers this is not! Resurrecting the spirit of Telltale’s iconic narrative-driven episodic games, Adhoc Studio, alongside Critical Role, have updated the formula for 2025, creating an interactive cartoon that riffs on a post-Invincible/The Boys superhero universe. Based on Episodes 1 and 2, you’ll remember that.
Robert Robertson is Mecha Man. A third-generation hero who lacks any actual superpowers, but uses the Mecha Man suit to fight crime in Los Angeles. It seems that in this world, there are quite a few powers to go around, with the existence of superhero-only bars and Superhero organisations that take numerous heroes under their wing.
Robert Robertson – he’s not Bob or Robbie like his father and grandfather, because he wanted to be taken seriously – begins Episode 1 on a revenge mission. His father died in the Mecha Man suit after facing off against Shroud, a former hero-turned-villain, and Robert needs to find Shroud and… well, you get to decide.
As with all Telltale games, the narrative here is interspersed with decisions, with two or three branches sending you in slightly different directions. Do you talk openly about your father’s death, or brush it away? Do you drop the guy you’re interrogating off the building, or pull him back onto the balcony? Does Robert say, “F*#k it” and choose the option that seems kind of stupid?
The animated cutscenes look fantastic, and this is absolutely a fully realised interactive cartoon. You can choose between cinematic mode, which only leaves you with branching dialogue choices during your playthrough, or interactive, which introduces QTEs to each of the action sequences. These do give you some more interaction, and if you’re looking to have at least the vaguest of game experiences, it’s probably the one to go for. That said, the storytelling through the opening episode is good enough that just sitting back and enjoying it is a valid option.
After at least one, very key event, you get to the Dispatch part of the game. Robert receives a job offer from SDN, delivered by the mildly overly-friendly Blonde Blazer. This company employs a number of heroes, and they’re looking to you to work as their dispatcher. Sending the right hero to perform the right mission, whether that’s stopping bank robberies or helping old ladies cross the road. The tutorial for this becomes part of your interview, and it’s up to you to follow the logic puzzles through to their conclusion. Hopefully, you’ll get the job or it’s going to be a very short season.
Episode 2 see you heading over to SBN for that job – so I guess even if you’re terrible at it, you’re getting a do-over. This might just be the most compelling game mechanic you’ve ever seen in a Telltale/narrative-driven game. As the dispatcher, you have to send out the right team member based on the requirements of the emergency, and their strengths will make success or failure more or less likely.
This is made more complicated by things going wrong mid-mission, and the fact you’ve been put in charge of the worst, on-the-cusp-of-being-kicked-out, team at SDN. They’re also former villains, so it’s like managing a mildly reformed Suicide Squad, and hoping they don’t set fire to the park in their attempts to get rid of criminals. As you’d expect, there’s plenty of opportunities for humour with that, and largely, the comedy hits its mark each time.
At the close of each episode, you get to see what other people have chosen at critical points in the story, which never fails to be interesting, even if it doesn’t truly add all that much to the experience. Are you a bad person? Did you do something barely anyone else did? I’m sure that there’s some kind of hidden personality test going on here, and I hope it’s not one I’m failing.
The production values are stellar. Breaking Bad’s Aaron Paul takes the lead, and his rendition of the world-weary but ever-so-witty Robert Robertson is spot on, while the rest of the cast includes such luminaries as The Batman’s Jeffry Wright, video game aficionado Alanah Pearce and Telltale alumni Erin Yvette. The animation is top-notch, and the character design is right on point from the off, with Mecha Man’s robotic suit is a part-Iron Man, part-Transformer marvel.
We’re only two episodes in on the eight-episode arc, but Dispatch is already making a bid for one of my favourite games of the year. If you’re into Invincible or a fan of Telltale’s best works – that’s The Wolf Among Us, just so we’re clear – then you owe it to yourself to get onboard with Dispatch. You’ll still be in time for the water-cooler chat.
