Dispatch had a moment in 2025. Viral, buzzy, lots of love. The Game Awards? Not so much. Now the weird part: AdHoc says the game will actually be eligible for TGA 2026. Yes, a year late. Welcome to awards-season rule weirdness.
- Release date: November 12, 2025
- Developer/Publisher: AdHoc Studio
- Eligibility twist: Co-founder Pierre Shorette told Eurogamer that Geoff Keighley personally said Dispatch qualifies for The Game Awards 2026
- This year’s outcome: It only landed a Debut Indie nomination despite its massive buzz
- Why 2026: TGA’s cutoff tends to hit in early November, and the criteria are famously opaque
- Precedent: Indiana Jones and the Great Circle launched in late November 2024 and ended up in the 2025 awards window
So, what happened?
Shorette told Eurogamer the nominations announcement day was a gut punch — they wanted to be in the mix this year. He says Keighley let them know Dispatch rolls into next year’s eligibility window, which is both helpful and a little awkward. The blunt truth from Shorette: the longer the wait, the tougher it is to keep a game top of mind.
Will anyone care by next year?
That’s the worry. 2026 could be stacked with heavy hitters, and even viral darlings get memory-holed after 12 months of new releases. Qualification is not a nomination, and a nomination is not a win. The window helps, but it’s no guarantee.
The attention plan: a little shameless, a little clever
AdHoc has at least one way to jog memories. Back in November 2025, Shorette told Inverse they regretted cutting some spicier scenes from Dispatch. Those scenes never even got storyboarded (per Eurogamer) and were cut for budget reasons. Now that the game has performed well, the team hasn’t ruled out revisiting them down the line.
In the new interview, Shorette half-joked about timing those restored scenes as a reminder before voting season kicks in. His words:
"We'll drop the s*x scenes the week before The Game Awards [2026] to remind people that Dispatch came out!"
To be clear, that’s not a confirmation — more of a nudge and a wink. But as a marketing beat? It would work. And it underscores where AdHoc’s head is at: they wanted a spotlight this year, and they’re not shy about chasing it when 2026 rolls around.
Where this leaves Dispatch
It’s eligible next year. It already got a Debut Indie nod this year. The cutoff quirks likely put it in a better position for 2026, but the field could be brutal. If AdHoc does roll out those once-cut scenes, that’s a handy way to reignite the conversation. Either way, Dispatch getting another shot at the stage is good news for a game that deserved more than a polite nod.