Back in 2014, the talented cast of the most popular Dungeons & Dragons tabletop live stream ever, Critical Role, wouldn’t have imagined having a Kickstarter for an animated series for their game.
Now, their coming full circle just got even more unbelievable, with Amazon ordering two full seasons of their animated show, Critical Role: The Legend of Vox Machina, to series on Amazon Prime Video.
Their original Kickstarter was slated to produce just a single one-off 22-minute episode with a funding goal of just US$750,000, but ended up becoming a 10-episode series by the time the campaign ended with a record-setting US$11 million.
Under Prime Video, there will be an additional 14 episodes that will be produced, raising the grand total of episodes to 24, across two 12-episode seasons. Furthermore, Amazon Studios acquired the rights to develop more series under the Critical Role banner in future. A tantalising prospect for hardcore fans (including myself, of course) and new ones alike.
“Critical Role blazed a new trail for original digital content, with fresh new voices and humor that earned devoted fans around the world, as evidenced by their wildly successful Kickstarter campaign,” enthused Amazon Studios head, Jennifer Salke, in a recent statement. “We’re thrilled to work with the whole team to bring The Legend of Vox Machina, and new Critical Role series, to our Prime Video customers.”
In another recent statement made by the Critical Role team themselves, those who supported the Kickstarter will still get first dibs on the show. No concrete release date has been set as of yet, but they estimate it to premiere as early as late 2020.
Critical Role: The Legend of Vox Machina will star the main cast of the show, who also began this affair as a home Dungeons & Dragons game. The cast includes distinguished voice actors from video games and animation, including Sam Riegel, Ashley Johnson, Laura Bailey, Travis Willingham, Liam O’Brien, Taliesin Jaffe, Marisha Ray, and Matthew Mercer.
Marion has a serious RPG addiction. Sometimes it bleeds into real life; he forgets to sleep because he thinks he has a Witcher’s body clock. Forgive him in advance if he suddenly blurts out terms such as “Mind Flayer” and “Magic Missile”, because never once does he stop thinking about his next Dungeons & Dragons game.
Si Jia
Natalie
