Dispatch Developers Say Cut Content Was Planned, Not Removed

The idea of cut Dispatch scenes has followed the game since launch, driven by developer comments and traces of unused code. That expectation is now settled. The scenes players hoped to see were never made, never animated, and never existed in a form that could be restored.

The clarification comes directly from lead writer Pierre Shorette and game director Nick Herman, who addressed the topic in a recent conversation with Eurogamer. Early remarks from Shorette had suggested that explicit scenes tied to romance options were removed late in development, creating the impression that content was finished and then withheld. That assumption has persisted within the community, but the developers say it was incorrect from the start.

Dispatch originally planned a post-party intimacy scene involving the player’s chosen love interest. The moment would have taken place after the apartment party in Episode 6, close to the end of the eight-episode season. Players later discovered unused variables in the game’s code referencing who might “spend the night,” which reinforced the belief that scenes had been cut rather than cancelled. Those variables, according to Herman, were placeholders for a concept that never progressed.

“Let’s curb this here, Pierre,”

Herman said during the exchange.

Shorette initially played along before backing down, making clear the comment was a joke. The tone shifted when the explanation turned to scope and budget.

“It was just money,” Herman said. “That whole scene was like double or triple the length; the whole party was almost an entire episode at Robert’s apartment. And scoping: we probably pulled like 80 pages out of this game. It was a lot of writing that had to get cut to be condensed down into something that we could produce.”

Those pages were removed before storyboarding or animation began. No scenes were blocked, voiced, or animated. There is nothing archived that could be released later. Herman stressed that point directly.

“So just to say it: those scenes were never storyboarded. They didn’t go into animation. So people say ‘release them’: they never tangibly existed.”

Shorette echoed that assessment, tying the absence of those scenes to the game’s long struggle to secure funding.

“Everything that got made, shipped,” Shorette said. “We wanted to put it in, we just ran out of money is what it really came down to. So you can blame the video game industry, not us. If people believed in us, we could have made it.”

Dispatch spent several years in development limbo as AdHoc Studio pitched the project to publishers. The team faced repeated rejections before eventually releasing the game independently. That constrained budget shaped not just the removal of planned intimacy scenes, but also the narrower romance structure overall. Players can only pursue relationships with Blonde Blazer or Invisigal, not members of the Z-team under the player’s command.

Shorette acknowledged that players are already projecting broader expectations onto a possible second season, including more expansive romance paths.

“And want to have sex with,”

Shorette said while discussing sequel expectations.

“Good lord,” Herman replied.

The exchange drifted into joking territory, but the underlying point remained serious. Shorette argued that Dispatch treats relationships as story-critical, not as optional fan service that can scale endlessly.

“We’ll make a Date Everything. But it has to be non-canon because it’s so messy,” Shorette said. “You can’t have a Date Everything because we have to take those seriously as relationships, not just treat this as like some fuck party.”

He pointed to Malevola, a muscular demon character who became an instant fan favorite, as an example of how quickly romance systems could overshadow narrative intent if expanded without restraint.

“If we threw Malevola in there, everyone would just fuck Malevola,” Shorette said. “Demon Cindy Crawford. Muscle Mommy. It would be easy mode.”

Despite those limits, Dispatch has exceeded expectations commercially. The game has sold more than two million copies and continues to draw critical praise. Former Witcher 3 developer Konrad Tomaszkiewicz named it his game of the year, adding to the momentum around the studio.

That success has fueled speculation about a second season, which the developers have not formally announced but have openly discussed. Shorette described the challenge ahead as managing expectation as much as ambition, especially after players filled in gaps that never existed with assumptions about cut content.

The conversation closes the door on restoring missing scenes, but it also clarifies the line between ideas that were abandoned early and content that was deliberately removed. In Dispatch’s case, the line is firm. Nothing was taken away after the fact. The game shipped exactly what the studio was able to finish.

Read also, fans weigh in on romance expectations for Dispatch Season 2 – discussion around future episodes is accelerating as players revisit Blonde Blazer and Invisigal routes, and debate whether a follow-up should expand or preserve the current relationship structure.