Superhero workplace comedy game Dispatch has proven to be a big hit this year, already selling over a million copies since launching in October. And the fandom around the game is ravenous, with many players deeply invested in the narrative-driven adventure game’s romances. This caught the devs off guard, and might lead to some cut sex scenes returning in some form.
In a new interview with Inverse, Dispatch writer Pierre Shorette talked about how the game came together over the last few years and was asked about fans going wild over the few relationship and romance options in the superhero game developed by some former Telltale folks.
“I don’t know that I anticipated it to be as ravenous as it’s been,” said Shorette of the fan reaction. “It’s probably why we didn’t plan for more romance options, because we didn’t know it was going to be such a meaningful part of the experience for folks.” Shorette explained that he often defaults to romantic comedy when writing and has tried to resist this tendency, but romance was never an intentional focus of Dispatch. Rather, it was just one of the many parts of the game. Still, seeing the fans react to the romance and sex that exist in the game has Shorette wondering if they made a mistake.
“We definitely cut some sex scenes. Which, in retrospect, we shouldn’t have,” Shorette told the outlet. “Maybe folks will get to see those one day.”
“There isn’t anyone on the development team that wouldn’t have a laundry list of stuff they wish they could polish more or gotten into the game. On the writing side, our team has a bunch of darlings that had to be killed along the way. We’re still an indie studio, I think people forget that because it’s doing so well and looks so good. But because it looks good, it costs a lot per second to make this video game, and sometimes it costs things that often, with these games, is branching too.”
Regardless, Dispatch has proven to be a big hit, with fans begging the devs for another season. And that might just happen. But for now, Shorette and the team at Ad Hoc Studios are just happy people like Dispatch so much. All eight episodes of Dispatch are out now on PlayStation 5 and PC.
