AdHoc Studio, the team behind the successful superhero adventure Dispatch, says it's been assured its game will qualify for The Game Awards in 2026.
The narrative-driven title, which places a bunch of misfit superheroes into a workplace comedy, was included in The Game Awards 2025's Best Debut Indie category, but the game was not eligible for most of the awards at this year's show — despite launching in 2025.
That appears to come down to Dispatch's episodic release schedule, which just so happened to cross over the cut-off for The Game Awards' jury voting period.
Over on Eurogamer, writer and AdHoc co-founder Pierre Shorette explains. "We found ourselves having only delivered half the game when people were submitting [votes]," he says. "What's wild, in a sense, is that we got nominated for Best Debut Indie from people who only played half the game, which is pretty nuts if you think about it from that perspective."
It sounds like, because the game wasn't fully available before the deadline, and so jury members couldn't play it, Dispatch missed out on several potential nominations. "It was a sad day when the nominations came out, because of course we wanted to be up there with folks," Shorette says.
However, there's still some hope it may get more recognition during 2026's show. Shorette says he has "heard from [Geoff Keighley] that we qualify for next year" now the full game is out. "I just don't think- it's a question of if anyone's going to care," he adds.
It'll be interesting to see if Dispatch's success and impact since its debut will be enough to carry it through to The Game Awards next December.