Episodic games, much like baggy jeans and curtain haircuts, may be about to make a comeback, and once again it’s Telltale staff – former Telltale staff – who are leading the charge.
AdHoc Studios, a team founded by Telltale developers in 2018, when Telltale collapsed, will launch debut game Dispatch – a superhero workplace comedy – episodically in October.
Episodes will be roughly an hour long and launch in quick succession. The plan is for two a week, I was told during a press briefing. The releases will begin Wednesday, 22nd October, and continue through 29th October, 5th November and 12th November until the whole series is done.
The entire Dispatch game or series, depending on how you look at it, will cost $30, or you can splash $40 for a Deluxe Edition with some fancy extras. Note, however, you won’t be able to buy episodes individually; the team clarified this to me in a separate interview after the briefing. That means if you pay-out at launch, you’ll have to wait four weeks for the whole series to arrive. The idea is to make it like watching a TV series.
I can imagine what you’re thinking: didn’t we try this episodic thing before and didn’t it fail because it didn’t work? Weren’t we waiting ages between episodes which seemed to only ever get further and further away? Well, yes – and the former Telltale staff at AdHoc are the first people to admit this.