The highly anticipated release of AdHoc Studio’s narrative hit Dispatch arrived on Nintendo platforms yesterday, but the launch has been marred by a wave of refund requests and community backlash. The studio, formed by Telltale Games veterans, confirmed that the Nintendo Switch and the newly supported Nintendo Switch 2 versions of the game feature mandatory censorship that cannot be disabled, a stark contrast to the optional filters available on PC and PlayStation.
The “Puritan” Switch Port
Dispatch, a superhero workplace comedy starring Aaron Paul (Breaking Bad) and Laura Bailey (The Last of Us Part II), was praised at its initial launch for its sharp writing and mature, often raunchy, humour. On other platforms, the game includes a “Visual Censorship” toggle, allowing players to filter out nudity and obscene gestures if they choose.
However, Switch and Switch 2 players discovered that this filter is permanently enabled.
- Visuals: Black bars now cover all nudity and, surprisingly, instances of characters “flipping the bird” (middle fingers).
- Audio: Sexually suggestive sounds have been muted. One specific “steamy” scene in Episode 4 reportedly had its vocal track entirely removed, leaving characters to interact in awkward silence (though AdHoc has since issued a patch to add background music to this void).
“We Worked with Nintendo”
Addressing the controversy, AdHoc Studio released a statement explaining that these changes were a prerequisite for entering Nintendo’s ecosystem.
“Different platforms have different content criteria, and submissions are evaluated individually,” the studio told Eurogamer. “We worked with Nintendo to ensure the content within the title met the criteria to release on their platforms, but the core narrative and gameplay experience remains identical to the original release.”
This statement highlights a difficult trade-off for developers: the need to access Nintendo’s massive install base versus maintaining the artistic integrity of an “M-rated” experience.
The Inconsistency Debate
The backlash, currently brewing on Reddit and social media, focuses less on the censorship itself and more on the perceived double standard. Fans have pointed out that Nintendo’s eShop is currently home to The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077—games featuring explicit nudity and sexual violence that remain largely uncensored.
Why Dispatch was targeted for such strict scrubbing remains unclear. Some industry analysts speculate that because Dispatch uses a stylized, cartoonish art style, Nintendo’s certification team may have judged its mature content more harshly than the “realistic” violence found in other AAA titles.
Others speculate that CERO (Japan’s rating board) policies may have forced a “universal binary” that applies strict Japanese censorship standards to the global version of the game to save on development costs.
A First Look at Switch 2 Standards
This story also serves as one of the first concrete examples of cross-generational policy for the Nintendo Switch 2. AdHoc Studio confirmed that while the content is censored on the new hardware, the performance is significantly upgraded.
- Nintendo Switch: Runs at 720p / 30fps.
- Nintendo Switch 2: Runs at 1440p / 60fps, confirming the new console’s ability to handle higher resolutions and framerates for indie titles.
While the performance boost is welcome, the “forced family-friendly” approach suggests that Nintendo’s stance on content moderation may not be loosening with the next generation of hardware.
What’s Next?
For Players: If you purchased Dispatch on the eShop expecting the uncensored experience found on other consoles, you may be eligible for a refund depending on your region’s digital rights laws. For the Industry: All eyes are now on other upcoming mature titles for the Switch 2 to see if this “mandatory censorship” becomes a standard policy for the new console generation.