Dispatch doesn't let you derail conversations with blank, vacant stares because 'less than 1%' of players ever chose to stay silent in Telltale games

Robert stares at a computer screen like a sicko — (Image credit: Adhoc Studio)

Aaron Paul's performance as Dispatch's Robert "Mecha Man" Robertson III could hit a lot of notes. Robert could be sarcastic and cynical, but surprisingly compassionate; his story offers romance and chances for heroism. But what Dispatch developer AdHoc didn't offer was any opportunities to derail conversations by deliberately choosing to stay silent, something players could regularly choose in the games that AdHoc's co-founders had worked on as former Telltale devs.

In a talk at GDC 2026, Dispatch creative directors Nick Herman and Dennis Lenart said they had a good reason for nixing the traditional "..." option: Nobody ever chose it.

Drinking in a bar — (Image credit: AdHoc Studio)

"We love to be able to play like an absolute weirdo, responding to every choice with a blank stare," Herman said. "But from our time at Telltale, we knew the numbers behind the scenes. Silent options were triggered either intentionally or unintentionally less than 1% of the time across all users globally."

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AdHoc still considered supporting the 'say nothing' playstyle, but after running the numbers, Lenart said offering a silent option for each of Dispatch's roughly 120 dialogue choices would mean "almost 15 full minutes of Robert not saying anything."

While a character saying nothing might seem like the easiest thing for a developer to accomplish, that silence doesn't come free when there's another character on the receiving end of Robert suddenly going nonverbal.

Drinking with Invisigal — (Image credit: AdHoc Studio)

"It doesn't sound like a lot, but we still had to write other characters reacting to that silence. We have to record voice. We had to storyboard, animate, light, and polish all of this," Herman said. "All this to support less than 1% of situations, especially as a new studio, really felt not worth it. So we killed it."

It's an unfortunate development reality for those who prefer to roleplay as a sort of human ellipsis, but maybe selling more than 3 million copies of Dispatch will mean AdHoc can enable a bit more voluntary awkwardness in its next outing. After all, Dispatch writer and AdHoc co-founder Pierre Shorette did say in November that the studio "was going to have to at least think about season 2 now." What better chance could there be for playing like an absolute weirdo?

Lincoln has been writing about games for 12 years—unless you include the essays about procedural storytelling in Dwarf Fortress he convinced his college professors to accept. Leveraging the brainworms from a youth spent in World of Warcraft to write for sites like Waypoint, Polygon, and Fanbyte, Lincoln spent three years freelancing for PC Gamer before joining on as a full-time News Writer in 2024, bringing an expertise in Caves of Qud bird diplomacy, getting sons killed in Crusader Kings, and hitting dinosaurs with hammers in Monster Hunter.

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