The Legend of Vox Machina is coming to your screens! After an incredibly successful Kickstarter campaign back in 2019, with over $11 million pledged towards an animated series based on Campaign 1 of the Dungeons & Dragons web series Critical Role.
Hosted by an array of esteemed American voice actors, and with a thriving international fan base, Critical Role may be the best-known example of ‘actual play’ D&D, where a group of friends get together and stream their dice-rolling adventures at the table. (You can check out our best D&D podcasts and web series guide for an introduction to a few more.)
Critical Role has come a long way from its cast members’ living room though, with a 24-episode animated series on the way to Amazon Prime Video, after the streaming giant stepped in – off the back of the Kickstarter success – to order two seasons of the show.
Whether you’re new to the world of Critical Role, or a seasoned fan looking forward to a new way to experience its lore, it’s an exciting announcement that paves the way towards Critical Role’s multi-medium success – with its own lines of merch, comic books, and Twitch talk shows expanding off the back of the central D&D show.
The ongoing Covid-19 pandemic has unsurprisingly shaken up the release schedule, as with so many other TV shows in production – Stranger Things season 4, The Witcher season 2, and the like.
But we’re expecting The Legend of Vox Machina to land in the near future, and this guide will run you through what to expect in terms of the story, voice cast, streaming access, and more – as well as the likelihood of a follow-up series based on Critical Role’s second campaign, The Mighty Nein.
The Legend of Vox Machina release date
The Legend of Vox Machina ran into production troubles, like much of the film and TV industry, due to the ongoing pandemic. It was initially slated to start dropping episodes in “Fall 2020” (September-December), though this date has since passed without a new release date.
It’s possible we’ll see the first season within 2021, though exact timings are hard to predict without firm confirmation from Critical Role itself. Watch this space.
The Legend of Vox Machina: where can you watch it?
The Legend of Vox Machina will stream exclusively on Amazon Prime Video, after the streaming service stepped in to back the animated series for an additional 14 episodes on top of the 10 episodes funded through the Kickstarter.
Backers will still get the entire first season as part of their pledge, and early access to the opening two episodes of the season, though the exact details and timings of this remain unclear.
We’re also told that “The series will be dubbed, subtitled, and otherwise localized for our very much global audience”.
The Legend of Vox Machina story and characters
For those of you expecting a retread of Campaign 1, that won’t quite be the case.
The Kickstarter for the show reveals that the animated series will cover a “brand new story” and “in-canon adventure”, created by the cast and scripted by screenwriter Jennifer Muro, who has worked on other animated series’ such as Star Wars: Forces of Destiny, Spider-Man, and Justice League: Action.
The first two episodes will act as a prequel adventure, with the original members of Vox Machina at level 7 prior to the streamed episodes – which kick off with the party’s arrival at the Dwarven city of Kraghammer.
However, the successful stretch goals will mean that the Briarwoods arc from the streamed campaign will also get its own batch of animated episodes.
Confirmed episodes:
- Episodes 1 & 2: A brand new story centered around Vox Machina at level 7 (FUNDED!)
- Episodes 3, 4, 5, 6: Briarwoods arc! (FUNDED!)
- Episodes 7 & 8: Continuation of Briarwoods arc (FUNDED!)
- Episodes 9 & 10: Continuation and conclusion of Briarwoods arc (FUNDED!)
The Legend of Vox Machina trailers
You can get a sense of the art style in this animated intro below, which shows off the party members of Vox Machina: Keyleth the druid, Percy the gunslinger, Grog the barbarian, Pike the cleric, Scanlan the bard, Vex the ranger, and Vax the rogue. The soundtrack here is the same one used for intros to current actual play episodes, which we expect will be used in some form for the final animated series.
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In mid-2020, the Critical Role team released a behind-the-scenes video of the ongoing animation work happening at Titmouse, with interviewed artists and examples of environmental art that you could pore over too, as it’s the best look we’ve had so far at the series’ production.
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The Legend of Vox Machina: who’s involved?
Naturally, the original cast for Campaign 1: Vox Machina will be reprising their roles for the animated series.
It helps that the whole cast are quite seasoned voice actors in their own right: Laura Bailey having voiced both Kat from Gears 5 and Abby from The Last of Us Part 2, Ashley Johnson voicing Ellie in The Last of Us games, Matt Mercer voicing Levi in the English dub of Attack on Titan and McCree in the PvP game Overwatch, and Sam Riegel having voiced Phoenix Wright in the Ace Attorney games, to name but a few of the cast’s immense catalogue of credits.
There’s been no word yet on guest appearances, with Critical Role often featuring outside players for one-off games or small plot arcs, with Will Wheaton and Joe Manganiello both appearing in Campaign 1. We would expect guests to reprise their roles where relevant, though.
The Kickstarter page states that, “to round out the main cast, we’ll bring in some extra special celebrity cameos, as well as voice over industry legends.”
The animation studio at the heart of it all is Titmouse, an American outfit that produces a host of animated programming, including shows for Nickelodeon, Cartoon Network, Disney XD, Fox, and Hulu. Some of the studio’s most notable output is for Netflix, as with the Netflix Original Big Mouth (starring John Mulaney) and The Midnight Gospel.
The artists working on The Legend of Vox Machina will specifically be “led by Art Director Arthur Loftis and Supervising Director Sung Jin Ahn.”
Critical Role has announced that “the vast majority of our resources” (around 74%) would go “into the animation budget.”
The Mighty Nein animated series: could it happen?
For now the Critical Role team is occupied with the animated series of their first campaign, Vox Machina, but the popularity of the upcoming two seasons could pave the way for more spin-off shows based on Critical Role’s other campaigns and storylines.
Campaign 2: The Mighty Nein is still ongoing at the time of writing, though likely to reach its conclusion before 2021 is done. We’ve heard occasional comments about the upcoming Campaign 3 from the cast, too, meaning there’ll be no shortage of D&D adventures to translate to the small screen.
It’s likely we won’t hear anything about a Mighty Nein animated series for a while yet, but the overwhelming interest in the Kickstarter for Vox Machina suggests there’s a lot of mileage in animated adaptations of Critical Role’s ongoing hijinks.