The idea of episodic games might feel somewhat antiquated, both being an idea that never truly caught on and also paradoxically a thing of the past.
Telltale’s own first season of The Walking Dead game, the first iteration of Life is Strange and The Wolf Among Us are arguably the most prominent examples of the episodic format working as well as possible, but since then, it’s dwindled in popularity.
However, developers who worked on those games have since formed a new studio, AdHoc Studio, and are hopeful that their next game – superhero workplace comedy, Dispatch – will utilise the format to its maximum potential.
What is Dispatch?
Starring Aaron Paul of Breaking Bad fame, Dispatch is somewhat different to the games that were in Telltale’s lineup due to being an original property, arguably aligning it closer to something like Life is Strange.
A core part of the gameplay is managing the superheroes available at the dispatch to best solve certain crimes or incidents, putting the player in more of an assist role, featuring dialogue choices and mini-games. Another draw of the game might be the extensive voice cast, featuring Jeffrey Wright, Laura Bailey, Travis Willingham, Matt Mercer, and many others.
Dispatch Release Date
Unlike the typical five-episode structure of many games in this genre, Dispatch is looking to have eight, though they’ll be released in weekly, two-episode batches.
This creates a more concentrated schedule than fans of the older games might have expected, with the release pattern looking like this:
- Episodes 1+2 – October 22nd
- Episodes 3+4 – October 29th
- Episodes 5+6 – November 5th
- Episodes 7+8 – November 12th
Episodic Games Format
While Dispatch demo was met with a lot of positivity, this might still seem to be a risky format, given that the best days of the genre might be long gone.
The third Life is Strange installment, True Colors, abandoned the format altogether. Life is Strange Double Exposure reviewed well last year, but was reportedly a large loss for Square Enix.
Co-founder of the studio, Pierre Shorette, stated that the weekly release schedule is reflective of the studio’s confidence.
He said: “We never really were able to hit it at a cadence that people could expect. It’s probably led to a lot of distrust with episodic formats, because the first episode comes out and then it might be ages before anything else shows up.”
Fellow co-founder, Denis Lenart, added, “part of the transaction formula in our mind was they’ve all got to be ready and they’ve all got to be good to go. Because that happened to Telltale – that’s one of the problems that happened.
“People would pay money and then go, ‘I thought you said next week.’ And it was like, ‘Actually, maybe it’s three or four weeks… We’ll let you know in a few weeks.’ And then that’s a horrible situation.”
