AdHoc Studio's co-founders went unpaid for six months to keep their team of 30 employees afloat while struggling to secure funding for Dispatch. The studio founded by industry veterans from Telltale Games, Ubisoft, and Night School Studio had created something no one in the industry seemed to want to finance.
The path to Dispatch proved circuitous and bruising. The game was originally envisioned as a live-action project inspired by ESPN's This Is SportsCenter commercials and planned to start production in March 2020, but development shut down due to COVID-19. When AdHoc worked with Telltale on The Wolf Among Us 2 but grew frustrated at being treated as "work for hire" and left after a few months of exploring other ideas before returning to Dispatch, the studio's founders faced a choice: abandon their first original project or find a way forward.
They chose to persist. Seeking funding, AdHoc announced Dispatch with a trailer on December 12, 2024, during the Game Awards, featuring a cast including Aaron Paul, Jeffrey Wright, Laura Bailey, and Matthew Mercer. Yet even that showcase didn't solve their crisis. The game was shopped around to potential publishers before one dropped out midway through development, leaving AdHoc without a financial lifeline.
The scepticism was real. A producer at the studio recalled that a lot of people were criticising everything from the episodic release strategy to the casting, saying the team wouldn't pull it off. Publishers and investors saw risk where the creators saw opportunity. A last-minute investor dropout sent the team scrambling for funds, before Critical Role swooped in to save the day with partnership and financing in July 2025.
The gamble worked. Dispatch sold over 3 million units within two months of its release cycle completion, with strong performance in the 2025 Tribeca Festival and overwhelmingly positive Steam reviews from its May 2025 demo. OpenCritic reported that 97% of critics recommended it.
Co-founder and creative director Nick Herman reflected that the team hadn't been able to fully enjoy a launch day until Dispatch reached its final episodes, underscoring the pressure they endured. Their willingness to back a vision that others had written off as too risky became the defining characteristic of their success. In an industry often dominated by sequels and safe properties, AdHoc proved that studios willing to take genuine creative risks can still find an enormous audience.
The studio is already considering a potential second season of Dispatch following the game's sales and reception, a prospect unthinkable just months earlier when funding appeared impossible and critics questioned their choices at every turn.