Critical Role is a web show where a group of professional voice actors plays Dungeons & Dragons. The show started streaming back in March 2015 on Geek and Sundry. It then eventually split off on its own and it still streams today. On March 4th of this year, the cast of announced plans of creating an animated special. The goal was to raise $750,000 in 45 days but the Kickstarter was fully funded within the hour. With 88,887 backers, the project raised $11,385,449 to help bring this project to life. This came as a great surprise to their team and yet it wasn’t totally unexpected - fans have wanted an animated series since the start of Critical Role.
The story will follow the events of Critical Role’s first campaign. It centers on the adventures of a group called Vox Machina. The cast is comprised of Matthew Mercer as the Dungeon Master, Ashley Johnson, Laura Bailey, Liam O’Brien, Marisha Ray, Sam Riegel, Taliesin Jaffe, and Travis Willingham. The campaign ran for 115 episodes and is now currently on its second campaign.
Titmouse, Inc. will be the animation studio behind the new show. They’re responsible for some of the work behind series like Avatar: The Last Airbender, Big Mouth, and Diablo III: Wrath. The main cast will keep their roles as the voices behind the Vox Machina characters but will also serve as executive producers of the animated series. Brandon Auman (Star Wars: Resistance) and Chris Prynoski (Niko and the Sword of Light) will also be executive producers. Sung Jin Ahn (Motorcity and TRON: Uprising) will be the supervising director.
There’s no official release date yet but the aim is to have it out by late 2020. Kickstarter backers will have the chance to be the first to watch the two-part special that starts off the series. They’ll also be able to watch the entire first season for free.
