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It’s time for our annual countdown to award the very best games this year had to offer. Over the next ten days, we’ll count down our top ten games of 2025.
As always, the votes of each Press Start team member, weighted from #10 through to #1, were collated to compile our collective very best for the year that was. Games worthy of one’s top spot would be awarded a maximum of 10 points, and the values would descend to their tenth selection, which would receive a single point.
About a decade ago, nobody did narrative-adventure quite like Telltale Games. With their takes on Robert Kirkman’s The Walking Dead and The Wolf Among Us, they solidified themselves as a household name in the video games industry, delivering story and character work the likes of which we’d rarely seen, all within the framework of a ‘choose your own adventure’ plot.
The Icarus-like course they’d charted for themselves would eventually see them burn up, and from their ashes would rise AdHoc, an upstart from developers who’d spent time at Ubisoft, Night School, and, of course, Telltale. They faced adversity throughout their formation as a studio, struggling to secure funding, which led the founders to forgo paychecks for six months to keep the staff afloat. Dispatch would eventually launch to the raving of critics, proving to be a success for the team.
Ad Hoc proved, in one fell swoop, that there’s still an appetite for episodic, narrative adventures if they’re done right. They delivered on their planned release schedule and served up a story that left players thirsting for more week-to-week. Courtesy of having a surprisingly high-profile cast, including the likes of Aaron Paul and Jeffrey Wright, it’s uncertain whether Dispatch will ever see a second season, but we’re so bloody lucky to have been given the game we got.
Harry Says
“Undoubtedly my sleeper hit for the year, Dispatch is a near flawless first showing from AdHoc Studio. Despite occupying a subgenre of superhero media that’s become slightly less novel, Dispatch feels anything but tired or uninspired.
Impeccable writing, tight pacing, and an endlessly lovable cast of characters will have you locked in for its seven-to-eight-hour runtime. It’s genuinely funny, impossibly moreish, and the best example of how episodic storytelling can work in video games.”
In our review, Brodie scored Dispatch a 9.5 out of 10, stating:
“Courtesy of an excellent, funny, and heartfelt superhero story that peeks at life behind the mask, Dispatch has made a late charge at the year’s top gong with a scintillating and near flawless eight-episode run, all the while bettering even Telltale’s hallowed best.”
On the review aggregator Metacritic, Dispatch is resting at an average of 89.
Congratulations to AdHoc for earning a place in our top ten for 2025.
Game of the Year 2025
#8 – Dispatch
