Dispatch had one hell of a debut season. With its fairly strong sense of humor, lively animation, bright visual style, and focus on its main characters, it quickly shot up the list of best narrative-focused adventure games. However, it had some weak points, something a theoretical second season could address. Such a season hasn’t been confirmed, but, given the reception to the first one and the handful of dangling threads, it would probably be wise for AdHoc Studio to return to the series in some way.
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Here are three things Dispatch Season 2 would be better off having if it does indeed come to fruition.
3) Deeper Dispatch Mechanics
Telltale Games was reportedly kept from innovating by risk-averse license holders and its board of directors, something that meant its games were light on gameplay. Dispatch addresses this by actually having a core gameplay mechanic in its dispatch system that sees players sending out various heroes to missions that pop up on a digitized map of the city. And while it’s much better than the often-tedious point-and-click puzzles seen in some other adventure games, it’s still not as deep as it could be.
A second season should make these dispatch systems (if they return) deeper and something more than simply serviceable. A more robust skill tree (with the much-needed ability to respec), powers that are more clearly defined, a wider variety of synergies, and having more opportunities to bounce back and heal are just some improvements that would make these parts more engaging and also address notable shortcomings of the first season. Ideally, it would be able to compete with more competent tactical games and be the great strategy experience that’s hiding in there somewhere.
2) Dispatch Mechanics That Influence the Story
Dispatching is a more active way to catch up with the Z-Team and can lead to some stressful scenarios where the bruised lineup barely makes it through a shift. However, that tension evaporates once it’s clear how little dispatching actually changes the story or characters. This is most clearly seen in the final big dispatch when failing or succeeding only seems to affect one relatively minor scene at the very end. Whether or not the city burns should have a more consequential impact.
Dispatch Season 2 should more intimately tie dispatching into its narrative and cast. Failing to stop robbers or acing a raid should at least warrant a line or two in the non-interactive parts after.
Seeing dispatch performances reflected in the dialogue would be nice, but it would be more interesting if they could change the tone of following scenes, alter how certain characters view each other, or bring in antagonistic factions from certain missions into the cutscenes. There needs to be a greater connection between the gameplay and story here, which would also have the added benefit of making the dispatches more engrossing because there would be more obvious stakes. According to AdHoc, the way in which players dispatch a certain character can help change the ending, and while an excellent idea, these types of ramifications should be more widespread and obvious.
1) Two Satisfying Arcs for Both Endings
Dispatch’s two endings are radically different: one sees an Invisigal who has been reformed after her time with the Phoenix Program, while the other has her falling back into her old ways and giving into her dark desires. The “evil” ending is quite bold by being so different and means a second season would have to contend with this heel turn branch. Telltale games rarely divulged this heavily and meant any sequels — although the studio mostly avoided follow-ups — could continue from both paths relatively smoothly and not need to account for much more than a handful of smaller, low-stakes choices separate from the finale.
Dispatch doesn’t have that luxury and should lean into it. Season 2 should explore these two variants and not succumb to telling a story that makes concessions or reverses course so it can begin in the same place; It would be disappointing if Season 2 funnels those who achieved the “good” ending into a path early on that turns Invisigal evil. According to trophy data on the PlayStation Network and Steam’s achievement statistics, 28.9% of PS5 players and 31.3% of PC users have gotten the “good” ending, while 31.3% on PS5 and 26.1% on PC received the “bad” ending. Only going down one road would probably disappoint a lot of people since there’s a relatively even split.
It’s a lot of extra work to actually make good on these choices and probably won’t be easy to meaningfully explore these two branches well and mine their respective themes of redemption and relapse. AdHoc has proved its writing acumen, yet this would still be a true test of how far its skills can go. But this team has already pushed forward in ways Telltale never could, so it’s not too idealistic to expect something a bit more ambitious.
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Image Courtesy of Marvel Comics
