There are a million things that have to go right for a video game to be a success. Well, maybe not a million. But a lot. Michael Choung, the CEO of AdHoc Studio – which released the popular superhero workplace comedy game Dispatch last year – admits as much. Choung says that there were “probably 20 decisions in the last seven years” that aligned to make the game a huge success. And casting Aaron Paul as Dispatch’s protagonist, Robert Robertson/Mecha Man, was one of those decisions.
I spoke exclusively with Choung and Dispatch Creative Director/Executive Producer Nick Herman ahead of the DICE Awards (Dispatch is nominated for six, including Game of the Year) on February 12 to break down everything that had to go right in order for Dispatch to see the light of day. Herman says that, although they had “pretty decent” temporary tracks out of the stand-in actors they hired before the main cast got into the studio, Paul’s performance pushed the entire development of the game in a new direction.
“Once we cast Aaron Paul and brought him into the booth, he brought a lot more gravitas,” Herman says. “He brought a heaviness to the character that started to allow us to take him more seriously. You can actually feel that he's got this burden on his shoulders and this weight from his past, and the game got a little bit more serious. When we were working with him we realized that was a good thing. We wanted that depth to show up in the game.”
Paul, perhaps best known for his Emmy-winning turn as Jesse Pinkman on Breaking Bad, is nominated for a DICE Award for Outstanding Achievement in Character, a nomination he shares with Herman and Dispatch’s other Narrative and Creative Directors. Laura Bailey, Paul’s co-star in the game who plays Courtney/Invisigal, is nominated for the same award. Herman says that assembling an all-star cast – which also includes Jeffrey Wright, Matthew Mercer, and Ashley Johnson – was both a creative and strategic decision.
“We knew that we wanted to have some big talent that when people see the name, they’d go, ‘Oh I know who that is. I know that actor and I like them,’” Herman says. “Aaron just read the script and he liked it. So we were very fortunate. We needed that tier, especially when you're going into rooms with a lot of suits who have a lot of money and make decisions.”
“I think there's a desire for people to want there to be this puppet mastery strategy around this stuff,” Choung adds. “But we just like these voices. You want it to be creatively compelling. (But) then you have these other additional bonuses: (the actors) having a huge audience, they (come from) different worlds. A lot of them were friends. They were people that we'd worked with before. So it’s years and years of experience just coming to bear.”
Now that Dispatch has become both a critical and commercial success, both Herman and Choung are reflecting on the intense reaction to the game. I asked them each if they could point to a single thing they were most proud of.
“You can dislike it, but the tone is unique and the result of countless numbers of decisions,” Choung says. “It’s a very strange alchemy that results in a tone like this. I'm proud that we stuck to our guns and we were okay with something a little off the beaten path.”
“We had a lot of bold ideas that people told us were maybe a little too risky,” Herman adds. “People were saying there's no money in narrative experiences. This stuff is dead. Removing freewalk, not having exploration, focusing on having one core main mechanic. All of these things are things we wanted to try for for a very long time. And we've treated Dispatch like this is our one shot, like this might be the last time we ever get an opportunity to make something on our own together. I think all of those things combined is the reason Dispatch is successful.
“The fact that it worked and that people were responding to it is awesome. I hope other people learn from this. Just go fucking nuts if you can. I'm proud that we went as hard as we did and we took as big of a swing as we could. Whether it's an indie game with one developer or it's a larger studio, it's hard and it's a miracle when a game gets made every time.”
Be sure to catch IGN’s exclusive broadcast of the 29th Annual DICE Awards on Thursday, February 12 at 8pm PT.
Michael Peyton is the Senior Editorial Director of Events & Entertainment at IGN, leading entertainment content and coverage of tentpole events including IGN Live, San Diego Comic Con, gamescom, and IGN Fan Fest. He's spent 20 years working in the games and entertainment industry, and his adventures have taken him everywhere from the Oscars to Japan to Buenos Aires, Argentina. Follow him on Bluesky @MichaelPeyton
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