Dispatch Episodes 7 and 8 Finish Out the Season With a Bang (Review)

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The first season of Dispatch has had some excellent episodes and a few good ones, but everything has been building towards the finale. Season finales are a chance to address earlier issues and deliver on promises made in the best episodes. While Dispatch Episodes 7 and 8 don’t erase the weaker parts of the season, they still provide a satisfying conclusion.

Episodes 7 and 8 are stronger because of the dramatic cliffhanger at the end of Episode 6. This shift creates a more serious tone, fitting for a finale. The story finally delivers on earlier setups, largely because the villain, Shroud, is given enough screen time to feel like a real threat.

Rating: 4/5

Pros Cons
Solid ending with a palpable amount of tension A couple strange plot-related contrivances
Worthy payoffs for a few threads Dispatching seems to have stakes this time, but it’s mostly an illusion

Dispatch Episodes 7 and 8 Finally Show Off the Big Bad

Shroud mostly appeared in the first episode, and later installments didn’t really follow up on that intriguing introduction. While it was good to focus on developing the main characters – a group of talented but flawed individuals – keeping the main villain largely out of sight diminished the sense of urgency that the game needed. Shroud’s appearances in episodes 7 and 8 created some genuinely tense and exciting moments, and his presence immediately signaled danger. These episodes still had some funny parts, but the story shifted towards more serious drama, which felt earned after the earlier episodes had built up the characters so well.

While it’s great to finally see Shroud take action, his scenes feel hurried. His history and conflict with Robert are quickly glossed over, and we only get a basic understanding of his beliefs. It’s obvious he’s a villain – his mask makes that clear – but the story doesn’t delve much into why he’s evil, offering only brief hints. This is frustrating because it shows he was underused in earlier episodes and deserved a bigger role throughout the season. Since Shroud is a fairly typical comic book villain, a lack of deeper character development really holds him back.

While Shroud doesn’t quite reach its full potential, its key characters benefit from well-developed storylines. These storylines change based on your earlier decisions and explore the ideas of redemption, a theme that runs throughout the entire season. Redemption is a great focus for games where choices matter, as both successful and failed attempts at it can be compelling. Seeing characters struggle with relapse and seek atonement is powerful, and it makes exploring different endings worthwhile – a real strength for a narrative adventure. The final part of the game has a few strange plot points that feel out of place, but they don’t ruin the overall impact of the exciting, action-packed finale.

Dispatch Episode 8‘s Dispatching Takes One Step Forward and One Step Back

The game’s dispatching system, where you choose who to send on missions, is a clever idea for a narrative adventure. It’s good that it focuses on thinking rather than quick reactions. However, the lack of any real impact from your choices—whether you succeed or fail—hurts these moments. In a game about choices and their consequences, it feels strange that nothing ever changes based on how you perform.

Episode 8 adds pressure to the gameplay with a health bar that decreases with each failed mission. Successfully completing a raid feels great, and it makes you wish earlier episodes had included this element. However, the episode also highlights some ongoing problems with how missions are handled. It’s a challenging and lengthy series of missions, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it quickly shows how easily things can go wrong. Failing a round injures your characters, weakening them and making future failures more likely, eventually knocking them out of action. This creates a frustrating cycle because there aren’t enough ways to recover – a single heal and resurrection just aren’t enough to turn things around.

The real problem is that failing this important mission doesn’t seem to matter much to the story. Every mission should have had some effect on the game – maybe through new scenes or even just brief comments from characters. But this one, given its dramatic setup and the health bar indicating high stakes, should have had a bigger, lasting impact. Instead, it turned out to be another disappointment. While these missions are still somewhat engaging because they require a little strategy, they could have been so much more meaningful.

Despite a few issues, the final two episodes of Dispatch, episodes 7 and 8, manage to wrap up the first season strongly and mostly live up to the potential shown earlier. While the main villain wasn’t fully developed, Shroud creates a tense and captivating atmosphere in these episodes. The final mission is a bit unsatisfying in terms of lasting impact, but it’s an exciting, if somewhat frustrating, conclusion. There were concerns these episodes might continue a recent dip in quality, but thankfully, they end the season with a powerful and memorable finish.

A PS5 copy of Dispatch was provided by the publisher for the purpose of this review.

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2025-11-14 02:17