AdHoc Studio opted to remove the traditional “stay silent” dialogue option in their game Dispatch because data from former Telltale developers revealed that less than 1% of players utilized it. Creative directors Nick Herman and Dennis Lenart confirmed at GDC 2026 that the choice to omit the feature was driven by efficiency and the technical overhead required to support non-verbal responses.
The Data Behind the Silence
While players often joke about wanting to play through narrative games as an “absolute weirdo” by responding to every prompt with a blank stare, the reality of player behavior tells a different story. “From our time at Telltale, we knew the numbers behind the scenes,” Herman explained. “Silent options were triggered either intentionally or unintentionally less than 1% of the time across all users globally.”
The High Cost of Doing Nothing
Despite the simplicity of a silent reaction, implementing it is a surprisingly resource-intensive endeavor for developers. AdHoc considered including the option for Dispatch’s roughly 120 dialogue choices, but Lenart noted that doing so would have resulted in “almost 15 full minutes of Robert not saying anything.”
Far from being an easy inclusion, silence requires a full production pipeline. “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 added. For a new studio, investing significant development time into a feature used by such a negligible fraction of the audience was deemed unsustainable.
Future Possibilities
Though the “human ellipsis” playstyle is currently off the table, the success of Dispatch may change things for future projects. With the game surpassing 3 million copies sold, discussions regarding a potential second season are already underway. AdHoc co-founder Pierre Shorette hinted in November that the team is now seriously considering the future of the franchise, which could eventually provide a new opportunity to reintroduce the awkward, silent playstyle that some fans clearly miss.
