The team behind Critical Role, the popular tabletop web series helmed by gaming voice acting legends, are making their first video game, which is set to take place within their role-playing game world of Exandria.
Steadily rising to stardom since their debut in 2015, Critical Role centres on a group of professional video game voice actors such as Matthew Mercer (Overwatch, Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom), Ashley Johnson (The Last of Us, Tales from the Borderlands), Travis Willingham (Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order, Spider-Man: Miles Morales), and Laura Bailey (The Last of Us Part 2, Uncharted 4), among others, as they get together to play the tabletop game Dungeons & Dragons.
Over the years, the show has evolved into other media, such as a 2022 animated series on Prime Video titled The Legend of Vox Machina, comic books, novels and numerous sell-out live shows, and now, its very own video game adaptation.
Announced via a post on X/Twitter, the project will be co-developed by the indie team at AdHoc Studio, who are also helming the upcoming Superhero narrative adventure Dispatch, and is made up of former industry veterans from Ubisoft and Telltale Games. Critical Role also plays a major role in Dispatch, with the duo’s collaboration kicking off when Willingham auditioned for a role in the game, which will also feature the vocal talents of Mercer and Bailey.
“Just from looking over the audition and game materials, I knew there was something special about what AdHoc was creating and I immediately reached out,” said Willingham during an interview with Variety. “The design, tone, style and storytelling of Dispatch jumped off the page, and I knew given the pedigree of the folks at AdHoc, this was a team we wanted to collaborate with.”
As for Critical Role’s upcoming game, not much is known at this point, although the team has teased that it would take place within their own role-playing world due to its code name, Project Exandria, and that it would take some inspiration from Dispatch. “We’re tossing around ideas, what are we thinking about in terms of scope and budget, and some of the things we must have,” Willingham added. “You are going to want to see your favourite characters.”
Kevin is a reformed PC Master Race gamer with a penchant for franchise “duds” like Darksiders III and Dead Space 3. He has made it his life-long mission to play every single major game release – lest his wallet dies trying.
