Dispatch was driven by 'a mix of arrogance and stupidity,' creators say

Dispatch proved a major commercial success: after launching at the tail end of October 2025 it sold more than 3 million copies before the year's end, and 97% of its over 165,000 Steam reviews are positive. At GDC, creative directors and AdHoc Studio cofounders Nick Hermand and Dennis Lenart said making the narrative superhero game felt like 'a mix of arrogance and stupidity' because the industry had largely written off that model.

Hermand and Lenart formed AdHoc in 2018 with Pierre Charette and Michael Chung after leaving Telltale, whose closure came within a month of AdHoc's founding. Even before they left, the pair had spent years discussing how they'd 'innovate and improve on the formula' of choice-driven narrative games.

Securing funding proved difficult in the live-service era.

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