The folks behind the best Borderlands game are back to revive the visual novel

Dispatch advertises itself as a workplace superhero comedy, but this irreverent debut from AdHoc studio is so much more than your standard release. Dispatch is, in many ways, the revival of a whole subgenre of visual novels — an interactive series of branching dialogues set against an always-moving narrative.

This type of storytelling was at the heart of the best Borderlands game, Tales from the Borderlands, and gave players the choose-your-own adventure of their dreams. However, when Telltale Games shuttered, its storytelling style went with it. AdHoc Studio is bringing it back, and it looks better than ever.

AdHoc Studio is rejuvenating a dormant genre with Dispatch

The style that would come to define Telltale Games emerged from their point-and-click games, starting with Sam and Max Save the World. You moved and clicked in the world around you to prompt out-of-pocket reactions from your animalistic detectives, and while there were puzzles, the real draw was the comedy and the writing. This experimentation gave Telltale the chance to work with more franchises, such as Tales of Monkey Island, but it wasn’t until The Walking Dead that the studio truly refined its formula.

The Walking Dead was a landmark moment, the first real example of what the studio would work on for the rest of its life. Puzzles fell to the wayside in favor of a stronger emphasis on the writing and characters, and above all else, player choice and agency. Saying someone ‘will remember that’ was a staple of a Telltale story, a promise that your actions were impactful in both large and small ways. Characters lived and died because of your decisions, but the story kept going anyway.

Telltale’s wild success allowed it to try its hand at a variety of stories, leading to some killer hits, whether in big settings like Borderlands or introducing players to relatively unknown stories with The Wolf Among Us. The studio developed a signature style —a balance of serious and silly — and an innate sense for the perfect cliffhanger.

Dispatch as a skill-based TV series

The cliffhanger build-up and release returns with Dispatch, thanks to AdHoc adhering to its former incarnation’s episodic release cadence. Rather than releasing the story all at once, the game serves as a season pass for all episodes as they come out, allowing players to treat it like other types of media, namely TV.

This imbues the game with a cinematic feel, with each episode housing an individual, escalating story and a consistent pacing. Tales from the Borderlands wouldn’t have felt as far-reaching and compelling if plot points didn’t develop naturally episode by episode. Splitting the story into episodes allowed Telltale to give decisions weight and space, with an ending splash screen showcasing your choices and relationships, and, crucially, comparing them to others’.

Dispatch’s return to this episodic format is perfect for its workplace sitcom tone, and players won’t even need to wait long, with episodes already lined up and set to release weekly. It won’t just be a case of sitting back with the occasional click of a dialogue option, though. In Dispatch, you play a former superhero now chained to a desk, coordinating and dispatching the right hero to the right job. Expanding on the games that came before it, Dispatch is making sure that your character is only as capable as you are.

No strings attached

While the team has a proven track record working in other worlds, it has acted as a natural constraint on their potential. Even if the writing in Tales of the Borderlands struck a sharper comedic note than Gearbox’s mainline entries and the setting was more ambitious, it was at the mercy of the original franchise’s archetypes and outcomes. The new characters from Tales of the Borderlands, for example, reappeared in Borderlands 3 and were utterly wasted.

With Dispatch, AdHoc Studio is launching into a new world with an original story and setting. Superheroes are hardly an untouched genre, and Los Angeles is no fantasy world. Still, it’s the first time that these Telltale veterans have been free to establish their own contextual parameters since the Poker Night and Puzzle Agent series. From the trailers and the demo, it’s clear that a deadpan comedic tone and stacks of heart will carry the story forward across episodes.

An ambitious cast

Not everyone is going to be sold on a game based solely on its creator’s track record. AdHoc is launching Dispatch independently, which comes with inherent challenges. The studio is far from inexperienced, however, and has put its best foot forward in its presentation. Outside of the comic-book cel-shaded style, the main presentational selling point is Dispatch’s stacked cast.

Between Aaron Paul (Breaking Bad) and Jeffrey Wright (American Fiction, The Batman), AdHoc is grabbing the attention of a general audience, all while double-dipping into influencer territory with Alanah Pearce and Jacksepticye. What will probably be most successful, both for Dispatch’s present and future, is their inclusion of the voice actors Laura Bailey, Matt Mercer, and Travis Willingham. 

AdHoc and the voice actors company Critical Role have announced an ongoing partnership, not just to help with Dispatch merchandise, but to move forward with an animated series. This star power and Critical Role’s involvement mean Dispatch should be well-positioned to stand out in the industry and possibly soar higher than its previous incarnation.

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