As head of the Brunette Blazer fan club, I must admit something before the grand jury of Dispatch fans: I never liked Visi all that much. That said, I still wanted what was best for her at the end of Dispatch, which is why I felt unbelievably gaslit when she ended up turning on my Robert (albeit after killing his greatest foe – which I construe as a parting gift).
My ending was still a happy one, with the Z Team celebrating a victory and Coupe back among our ranks after a brief return to her villain beat. Life went on, with or without Invisigal on-side. When I replayed the game and romanced the “misunderstood” Visi, I expected her good ending to be… well, different. Or at the very least result in a markedly different outcome for Robert in general.
But the truth is, the only difference is who I’m kissing before the credits roll. Despite its multiple ending variants, a hypothetical Dispatch season 2 – which hasn’t officially been confirmed yet – doesn’t have a lot of cleanup to do after all, even if it makes either one of these endings canon.
Warning: Spoilers and analysis of Dispatch’s endings ahead!
Days of futures past
At the end of Dispatch, Shroud gets ousted. This is a fact whether you kill him yourself, let Visi do the honors, or spare him. If he lives, he’s sent to jail, but the door is always left open for him to return in season 2 as the villain again.
On the other hand, if Visi goes dark and kills him herself, she picks up Shroud’s mask before vanishing. This potentially insinuates that she might take over the Red Ring as the new Shroud, returning back to her villainous roots. The game wants me to believe that this is supposed to be a bad outcome. Respectfully, I disagree.
It’s the far more interesting outcome out of two rather similar variants. Assuming the second season of Dispatch features the same cast, developer AdHoc has a big choice to make: does it canonize Shroud’s incarceration and potential return as the big bad for a second time, or does it deliver a new nemesis unto Robert? Someone we know, had some degree of trust with, and might even have fallen in love with?
It’s a no-brainer to me that the latter is definitively more compelling. However, the ultimate result is the same: someone returns as a supervillain, potentially wearing that damned Shroud mask.
I can see a couple ways how this plays out. Firstly the devs choose one of the above endings to canonize – something that might not go down the best with players, but would make sense from a narrative perspective if the writers want greater control over season 2’s story. Alternatively, there could be a moment where players get to make a choice to establish which ending they got last time, and the story can fork out from there.
Or rather, the details might shift slightly. Shroud and Visi are essentially vying for Robert’s forgiveness at the end of Dispatch season 1, whether or not they know it. Either Robert forgives Shroud enough to want him brought to justice rather than killed, or he forgives Visi for being a double agent and she takes a non-fatal bullet for him. Either way, whoever is behind the Shroud mask (assuming it plays a part in season 2 at all) will be someone who’s done Robert dirty more than once.
Sure, the narrative nuance is still to be expected, as are any differences between whether or not you romanced Blazer, Visi, neither of them, or both. But I think AdHoc studios is in a pretty sweet spot right now, since the first season’s endings don’t leave the world itself irrevocably changed in significantly different ways.
The ultimate result is the same: someone returns as a supervillain, potentially wearing that damned Shroud mask.
The same can’t be said of Mass Effect 3, which sees one of four pivotal endings play out, and as a result, has left fans utterly clueless as to how Bioware might recognize the player’s past choices in the upcoming Mass Effect 5.
Dispatch feels more Telltale Games than Bioware in that regard. Divergent choices influence the immediate response and reactions of NPCs around Robert in the moment, which feels more like roleplaying than curating an ending. It makes for a tightly narrativized world that feels flavored by our actions, since the endings are more like variants than totally discrete outcomes.
All that to say: don’t sweat Dispatch season 2’s potential canonization. This game’s story thrives in its subtle differences, each one making our unique experience feel like our own while still ensuring there’s no such thing as a truly bad ending. I don’t see any of us getting majorly let down by the sequel – as long as beloved Blazer is still calling the shots.
Check out all the new and upcoming PC games set to land in 2026 if you’re on the hunt for a post-Dispatch fix
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