Critical Role Animated Special Fully Kickstarted in Under One Hour

By Jonathon Dornbush

Critical Role, the long-running, livestreamed Dungeons and Dragons game featuring voice actors from Marvel’s Spider-Man, The Last of Us, and more, has seen its new Kickstarter for an animated special fully funded in under an hour.

The Kickstarter for Critical Role: The Legend of Vox Machina Animated Special has reached its goal of $750,000 in under an hour of the campaign launching today, March 4. It actually passed over $1,000,000 raised in under an hour, with close to 8,000 backers having contributed as of press time. Stretch goals are currently listed on the Kickstarter page, with the first already hit at $1 million, but the necessary fundraising amounts for the rest have not yet been revealed.

The animated series will be produced by Titmouse, the production company behind Netflix’s Big Mouth, and written by Star Wars: Forces of Destiny’s Jennifer Muro.

Critical Role is a weekly D&D game, both livestreamed and available as an audio podcast, featuring a number of recognizable voices from video games and animated series. Matthew Mercer serves as DM for the game, while Laura Bailey, Taliesin Jaffe, Ashley Johnson, Liam O’Brien, Marisha Ray, Sam Riegel, and Travis Willingham are players in the ongoing game.

The Vox Machina animated special is based on Critical Role’s first campaign, which featured the cast in the following roles:

• Pike Trickfoot (gnome cleric, Ashley Johnson)
• Keyleth (half-elf druid, Marisha Ray)
• Percival “Percy” Fredrickstein Von Musel Klossowski de Rolo III (human gunslinger, Taliesin Jaffe)
• Grog Strongjaw (goliath barbarian, Travis Willingham)
• Scanlan Shorthalt (gnome bard, Sam Riegel)
• Vex’ahlia (half-elf ranger, Laura Bailey)
• Vax’ildan (half-elf rogue, Liam O’Brien)

Currently in its second campaign, The Mighty Nein, Critical Role has seen numerous guest stars throughout its life, including Deathstroke actor Joe Manganiello, Batman Beyond’s Will Friedle, and Daredevil’s Deborah Ann Woll.

The animated special is planned for a release sometime in Fall 2020, with rewards being shipped out in Spring 2020. Though, with stretch goals related to increasing the length of the special, it’s unclear if that will cause any delays or changes to the release schedule.

New episodes of Critical Role air every Thursday on Twitch.

Jonathon Dornbush is IGN’s News Editor and Critical Role fan, who has his girlfriend to thank for getting him into the series. Talk to him about it and his current water genasi D&D character on Twitter @jmdornbush.