Dispatch has 5 million players and AdHoc is hosting a live concert for its first anniversary

It’s been a year since independent game developer AdHoc Studio launched its now-famous episodic superhero narrative adventure game “Dispatch” – and in that time, the game has attracted over 5 million players. Now, the team behind the title (which has doubled in size since last October) has decided to celebrate its digital victory in the physical world.

Titled “Dispatch: Night Shift,” the anniversary event is described as “a live, in-person entertainment experience.” Organized by AdHoc as an exclusive one-night show taking place this December in Los Angeles, Night Shift will bring together the game’s songs and original music on a single stage, with the score serving as a connection between each set, just as it connects the game.

Among those taking the stage at the live event is ‘Dispatch’ composer Andrew Arcadi, who will perform the game’s original music live alongside select artists who contributed to the game’s soundtrack, including Thot Squad, Bershy, Primer, Caroline Kingsbury and Fartbarf, playing tracks from ‘Dispatch’ and their own albums.

The “Dispatch: Night Shift” event will take place at Avalon Hollywood nightclub in Los Angeles on December 3. Doors will open at 6 p.m. and the Night Shift show will begin at 7 p.m. Because tickets are “extremely limited,” fans are encouraged to sign up for AdHoc Studio’s mailing list to access advance ticket sales at this link. Pre-sale tickets will go live on October 28 with purchases limited to two tickets per person; more information is available at this link.

Alongside the live show, AdHoc marks the first anniversary of “Dispatch” with a number of other surprises. This includes a free Deluxe Edition update featuring two new behind-the-scenes modes: Commentary and Storyboard. Commentary Mode features over 16 hours of cast and crew commentary, and Storyboard Mode lets players experience the entire game through the original storyboard animations. Existing Deluxe Edition owners will have access to Commentary mode and Storyboard mode with a free upgrade, while Standard Edition owners can purchase the Deluxe upgrade for $10.99.

The company also announced that “Dispatch” is coming to mobile: the game will launch on Android and iOS, with support for Google Play Games on PC, starting December 9, 2026. The mobile version includes the base game, rebuilt for touch and vertical play. At launch, players will be able to access the first four episodes for free and unlock the full mobile version for $19.99.

Additionally, AdHoc announced a line of “Dispatch” anniversary merchandise, featuring artwork from the game’s art director, Derek Stratton. Created for the three-disc vinyl set of the Dispatch soundtrack available exclusively through Lost In Cult, the designs can now be found on shirts and hoodies. Additionally, 100 album covers signed by Stratton will be available for purchase. AdHoc and Lost In Cult are also expanding their collaboration with a “Dispatch: Design Works” collection, including a hardcover book and a collectible box featuring interviews with the cast, developers and more.

Aaron Paul stars in “Dispatch” as Robert Robertson, aka Mecha Man, who is at the center of a dysfunctional team of misfit heroes. You play as dispatcher Robert, who must strategize who to send in case of an emergency in the city, while balancing office politics, personal relationships, and his own quest to become a hero with a damaged suit. The game’s cast includes Laura Bailey (“The Last of Us Part II”, Critical Role), Erin Yvette (“Hades II”, “The Wolf Among Us”) and Jeffrey Wright (“American Fiction”, “The Batman”).

AdHoc COO Nick Herman and AdHoc CEO Michael Choung, two of the studio’s founders, say the “Dispatch: Night Shift” concert-style experience has been in the works since January. Around this time, several musicians who participated in the “Dispatch” soundtrack wondered if they could include elements of the game in their own live performances.

“It felt like there was an opportunity here where our fans were going to their shows. Why not create a place for everyone and have a mini-festival and celebrate all that,” Herman says. “As soon as we had the idea, we were like, ‘OK, this is going to be overproduced, we’re going to go crazy.’ We’ve never produced a concert so we work with Banter Events who have experience putting on live events and they’ve been really great at teaching us how to do it. It’s kind of similar to “Dispatch” where we’ve never done a premium animated TV show through that pipeline. It’s kind of good to not know because then you just ask crazy stuff and then they say, OK, and then we’ll figure it out.

Herman has had “Night Shift” written “in the top corner in permanent marker” for the team since the start of the year, as the game was coming off a peak of impressive debut sales and multiple 2025 Game Awards nominations.

“There was definitely a plan – but I will say the energy, especially in January, was more drunk than sober in the sense that success hit us all,” Choung says. “We had no idea what it was, it just felt like we had to do something. And then Nick said, let’s do it. We signed up without knowing anything about how to do this stuff.”

Herman says launching “Dispatch” “gave us confidence in our instincts.”

“This is our first original as a studio, the first original IP we’ve ever done as creatives,” says Herman. “So every time there’s a weird idea, we’re like, ‘Well, maybe it’s not that weird, the last weird idea works.’ We’re really excited and optimistic about the future of what we do and what our teams are building.

Choung adds, “I think one of the things that success means to us, which again is entirely new, is a blank slate. And that’s both a blessing and a curse for a writer. It’s like the best thing you can give someone. It’s the worst thing you can give someone. And so we fill it with things we never thought we could do. We’re in no rush to fill it either, because that the potential and the possibilities of a blank slate are so exciting. So there’s a lot of ideas and a lot of thinking within the studio about what could be next, what we should do.