Zero expectations’ for Season 1: Dispatch devs say Season 2 is closer than fans think, but it won’t be easy

Dispatch exploded out of nowhere, selling over 2 million copies and grabbing a fierce following, but as fans keep pushing for a second season, the game’s creators at AdHoc Studio say they’re still days away from a final decision.

“Are you doing it? Are you not doing it?” That’s the question Nick Herman, studio co-founder and Dispatch director, hears constantly. Speaking with Eurogamer, Herman made it clear that the Dispatch team wants to move forward. But they’re still ironing out their plans. “We’re days away from really sitting down and having the time, because we’ve had to support the game, where we’re going to really sit down and lay those plans out,” he said.

Fans are getting antsy. “People are mad that we haven’t told them what we’re doing,” Herman admits.

Why Season 2 Isn’t a Done Deal—Yet

The hints about a follow-up have been anything but subtle. Pierre Shorette, Dispatch’s lead writer and another co-founder at AdHoc, joked about bringing back a cut K-pop idol-inspired character named Winter for a follow-up. “We should do that for Season 2,” he said, quickly adding: “If there is a Season 2!”

But when pressed directly about how real the talk is, Shorette levelled with fans: “As seriously as anything.” It’s clear. Something is brewing, but it’s tangled up in creative and logistical pressure after a dream launch that no one expected.

If Dispatch gets the Season 2 greenlight, the project faces what the developers openly call the “difficult second album problem.” The first season took years, seven, in fact, to perfect. The next big thing? They’ll have a fraction of that time.

Shorette explained: “You have your whole life to write your first album and then eight months to write your second. And there’s a little bit of that feeling. We had so long with this; seven years is a lot of time. If anything, it would have been embarrassing if it was bad. I mean, you took fucking long enough! We’re taking GTA 6 amounts of time on this sh*t, you know… it better be good.”

Delivering a worthy follow-up is the real challenge. “I know we’re not going to have that amount of time for Season 2 because we want to meet the demand,” Shorette said. His point lands: huge anticipation means less time, more eyes, and no space for missteps.

The Weight of Expectations

AdHoc’s leaders are blunt about the new climate they’ll face if they move ahead. “There were zero expectations for Season 1 – external expectations,” Herman pointed out. People simply tried it, formed opinions, and let themselves be surprised. No complicated fan theories, no pressure—for Season 2, that freedom is gone.

“Season 2, if we do it, we know that’s going to be an extra challenge,” Herman said. Within seconds, Shorette chimed in: “A lot of pressure. It’ll be about what it’s not as much as what it is.”

That comment points to something quietly daunting. The entire Dispatch journey was already rough; seven years, multiple pivots, and a project that started life as a live-action TV series before getting dropped by its publisher halfway through. Patch it all together, and success was never guaranteed.

Season 1 emerged out of nowhere, with practically no one knowing what to expect. That same runway won’t exist next time. If planning for Season 2 happens the way the devs envision, they’ll need to navigate not just the logistics, but fan hopes and worries, too.

For now, Dispatch fans will have to wait out the suspense. AdHoc Studio is talking “as seriously as anything” about what’s next, and trying to figure out how to top lightning in a bottle, before the bottle even cools.