Critical Role: the story on HearLore

When did the first episode of Critical Role air?

The first episode of Critical Role aired on the 12th of March 2015. The show began streaming partway through the cast's first campaign which had started three years earlier in a private home game.

Who is the Dungeon Master for the fourth campaign of Critical Role?

Brennan Lee Mulligan serves as the Game Master for the fourth campaign of Critical Role. This campaign premiered on the 2nd of October 2025 and is set in Mulligan's own setting.

What is the Mercer Effect in Critical Role?

The Mercer Effect is a phenomenon where amateur Dungeon Masters feel they will never live up to the standard set by Matthew Mercer. It describes the belief that all TTRPG players expect an experience with the same narrative and gameplay qualities as Critical Role.

When did the Legend of Vox Machina animated series premiere?

The Legend of Vox Machina animated series premiered on the 28th of January 2022 on Amazon Prime Video. The project was originally slated for release in late 2020 but was delayed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

How many episodes were in the first campaign of Critical Role?

Campaign one of Critical Role ended in October 2017 after 115 episodes. The campaign ran from the 12th of March 2015 to the 12th of October 2017.

Critical Role

The first episode of Critical Role aired on the 12th of March 2015, but the story it told began three years earlier in a living room where professional voice actors played a simplified version of Dungeons and Dragons for a birthday party. Matthew Mercer, who would become the show's Dungeon Master, had been encouraging his friend Liam O'Brien to join a game for some time, but O'Brien had declined due to his new child. When O'Brien finally agreed to play for his birthday, the group enjoyed the session so much that they continued playing for two years, switching from the fourth edition of Dungeons and Dragons to the Pathfinder ruleset. This private home game ran for two years with the cast meeting approximately once every six weeks and playing for up to eight hours at a time. The group's first campaign began two years prior to the start of the series as a one-off, simplified Dungeons and Dragons 4th edition game for Liam O'Brien's birthday. The show started streaming partway through the cast's first campaign in March 2015. Campaign one ended in October 2017 after 115 episodes, and campaign two started in January 2018 and ended in June 2021 after 141 episodes. A number of one-shots were aired in the hiatus between the two campaigns. After campaign two was completed, the spin-off limited series Exandria Unlimited aired from June 2021 to August 2021. The third campaign aired from the 21st of October 2021 to the 6th of February 2025 with 121 episodes. The fourth campaign premiered on the 2nd of October 2025. The first three campaigns featured Matthew Mercer as the show's Dungeon Master and were set in the Exandria campaign setting; Brennan Lee Mulligan of Dimension 20 serves as the Game Master for the fourth campaign which is set in Mulligan's setting of . The series is broadcast on Thursdays at 19:00 PT on the Critical Role Twitch and YouTube channels and the Beacon streaming service, with the video on demand (VOD) being available to Beacon, YouTube, and Twitch subscribers immediately after the broadcast on their respective platforms. The VODs are made available for the public on Critical Role's website and uploaded to their YouTube channel on the Monday after the live stream. Prior to the COVID-19 pandemic, the show had broadcast live, but has been pre-recorded since its return for episode 100 of campaign two. The cast own the intellectual property from the show, and the show also lends its name to the studio owned by the cast, Critical Role Productions. The studio has produced Critical Role since 2018. A number of licensed works based on the show have been released, such as several comic books and two official campaign setting guides. The Legend of Vox Machina, the animated series based on the first campaign of Critical Role, premiered the 28th of January 2022 on Amazon Prime Video. The Mighty Nein, an animated series based on the second campaign, premiered on the 19th of November 2025.

From Living Room To Global Phenomenon

The Architecture Of A Tabletop World

The physical production of Critical Role has evolved from a simple home game to a sophisticated multi-camera setup that mimics the experience of watching a live theater performance. The cast played at a shared table when it was still a home game, however, the first set at Geek and Sundry separated the cast onto three tables. The set, nicknamed Felicia's Bedroom, had numerous issues including poor audio, cameras which blocked the player's eyelines and long distances between the tables. O'Brien has stated that it felt like a child's diorama for a school project. The distance also made it challenging for the cast to see the battle maps. The show moved to another set early on, which featured a stony, moodily-lit backdrop. A custom game table which allows the cast to sit together was added to the set in July 2017. It was designed by Wyrmwood so that the cast can see each other and interact with each other while they are filmed from multiple sides. Mercer is positioned behind a gamemaster's screen in the inset portion with space for his notes; in the center of the table, there is an area for the miniatures and maps used for combat. Critical Role was initially filmed at Geek and Sundry, but moved to its own studio in June 2018. From 2016 to 2019, Critical Role was also available on Legendary Digital's Alpha platform. The Alpha version featured a number of digital enhancements including special real-time dynamic character sheets, damage and heal animations, and visualizations. This version is no longer accessible as Alpha was shut down in March 2019. The show originally did a live broadcast but has been pre-recorded since Campaign Two Episode 100; the change occurred as a result of filming conditions during the COVID-19 pandemic. The show is filmed in a simultaneous multi-camera setup with two cameras at the players and a third at the Dungeon Master. The three camera feeds are arranged in a single window for the audience. Additionally, a fourth Battle Cam can be turned on when necessary, to show a close-up of the miniatures and models used for in-game combat. This composite approach was novel at the time and more commonly seen in e-sports. Prior to this, actual play shows were sometimes using wide-angle lenses in an attempt to include the full table. The composite format came to dominate the genre during the late 2010s. Em Friedman, for Polygon, commented that showing all angles of a table, simultaneously, live meant the reactions of the players became a significant part of the audience experience, leading to some of the most memorable moments in the show. A new set, designed by professional amusement park designers Shaun Ellis and Polly Hodges, was built for the third campaign in 2021. The cast are no longer divided into socially distanced individual tables, but returned instead to a common table as had been the case prior to the pandemic. The Wyrmwood table was replaced with a new custom game table. The update also features enhanced set designs, music, lighting and effects, along with improved sound. The Campaign Three set, which was called the Tavern of Tales, was then replaced with a new set built for the fourth campaign in 2025. Ray explained that with the Campaign Four set they were able to innovate and iterate on what they learned from building the previous set in terms of effects and the camera dimensions. In comparing the set design, Ray commented that Campaign Three's set was intended to be a very blank space, a tavern that reflects your imagination while the Campaign Four set is a lot more grounded in the setting of and the city of Dol-Makjar where the campaign begins. Critical Role has played with a live theater audience fifteen times. The tenth live show was the first to take place internationally, occurring at the OVO Arena Wembley, in London. The third campaign's premiere in 2021 was simulcast live in Cinemark Theatres along with the regular Twitch and YouTube livestream. Similarly, the 17th episode of the third campaign was simulcast in Cinemark Theatres, Landmark Theatres, and Cinépolis alongside the regular livestream as part of their 7th anniversary celebration. As part of the show's tenth anniversary celebration in 2025, Critical Role did a live tour in cities across the United States and Australia. In May 2025, Critical Role announced a partnership with Fathom Events to air the remaining live tour shows in movie theaters shortly after each show was recorded. Variety reported, per Critical Role, it is the company's largest-ever theatrical distribution agreement with the four live shows being broadcast at 800 movie theaters. In July 2025, Critical Role announced their upcoming 2026 live tour , titled Echoes of Exandria , in cities across the United States and Europe.

The Cast And The Campaigns

From October 2015 to February 2025, Critical Role consisted of eight main cast members, all of whom are the original cast. The show had a cast of nine for the first 27 episodes. The main cast was then expanded to fourteen, thirteen players and the dungeon master, with the fourth campaign scheduled to premiere in October 2025. A number of guest players have also appeared on the show over the years. Guests are an irregular occurrence on Critical Role and, in most cases, only stay on the show for a one-off appearance or a few consecutive episodes. The first campaign takes place primarily in Tal'Dorei, a continent of Exandria. It follows the exploits of an adventuring party known as Vox Machina, previously known as the Super High-Intensity Team, a rag-tag group of mercenaries originally formed in the swamp town of Stilben. The show begins in medias res with the characters regrouping in the city of Emon after approximately six months apart and the streamed campaign picks up where the cast's original home game left off. The first episode of the show aired on the 12th of March 2015, and the campaign concluded with its final episode on the 12th of October 2017. Campaign one was broadcast live on the Geek and Sundry Twitch and YouTube channels between the 12th of March 2015, and the 12th of October 2017, for a total of 115 episodes and six story arcs. The second campaign began on the 11th of January 2018, and follows the adventuring party known as The Mighty Nein. The story is set on the continent of Wildemount, which was briefly visited during the Vox Machina campaign. The Mighty Nein campaign is set about 20 years after Vox Machina's final battle against Vecna and takes place in a time when tensions between two of Wildemount's mightiest nations are very high. A hiatus due to concerns around the COVID-19 pandemic was in effect from March to July 2020, after which the show returned in a non-live format adjusted for social distancing. In May 2021, the cast announced that campaign two would end shortly; however, the Mighty Nein's story wasn't finished. The finale aired on the 3rd of June 2021; it was the longest episode at just over seven hours. The third campaign premiered on the 21st of October 2021. The story takes place after the events of the second campaign and Exandria Unlimited; it is set on the continent of Marquet, which was briefly visited during the Vox Machina campaign. Multiple characters in this campaign are returning characters. Dorian, Orym, and Fearne premiered in Exandria Unlimited while Bertrand premiered in the one-shot Search For Grog. The characters met in the city of Jrusar and later named their adventuring party the Bells Hells after a fallen member. After Riegel's character FCG sacrificed themself to save the Bells Hells in Episode 91, Riegel took a leave of absence from the show to receive treatment for cancer before returning to the show with a new character in June 2024. In August 2024, Mercer started to seed the return of the players as their parties from previous campaigns within arcs in the third campaign which would allow the cast to play as Vox Machina, the Mighty Nein, and Bells Hells in what would technically be the same fight, though spread out over their respective targets. The show went on an unplanned hiatus in January 2025 as a result of the California wildfires in the Los Angeles metropolitan area where the studio, cast and crew are located. The finale aired on the 6th of February 2025; at over eight and a half hours, it is also the longest episode of the series. The fourth campaign premiered on the 2nd of October 2025 and features Brennan Lee Mulligan as the Game Master for a campaign in a new setting called . On the 21st of August 2025, Critical Role released the cast and campaign structure for the fourth campaign which included the announcement that the campaign would be using the 2024 revision to the 5th Edition ruleset of Dungeons and Dragons. In addition to the original Critical Role cast returning, including Mercer as a player, the player cast was expanded , Luis Carazo, Robbie Daymond, Aabria Iyengar, Whitney Moore and Alexander Ward will join the main cast. After the opening four sessions of the campaign, Mulligan split the players into three initial groups: the Soldiers, the Seekers, and the Schemers. The campaign then continues in a West Marches-style structure.

The Mercer Effect And The Exit

The departure of Orion Acaba from the show in 2015 remains one of the most significant and controversial moments in the series' history. Emily Duncan of Tor.com stated that the popular consensus is to start Critical Role first campaign after Acaba's departure as everyone at the table is more comfortable and the energy of the group is more vibrant after the removal of a player who caused some tension within the first two arcs. Emily Friedman, in the book Roleplaying Games in the Digital Age, highlighted that while the public statements by all were civil and warm, fan speculation was so rampant that the Critical Role Reddit page has an entire FAQ section on what can and cannot be discussed in relation to Acaba and his character Tiberius Stormwind. Shelly Jones, in an essay in the book Watch Us Roll, also highlighted the fan response, including the Reddit FAQ, to Acaba's departure and the cast's external strife associated with his departure, such as disgruntled and deleted Tweets and an uncomfortable AskMeAnything on Reddit. James Grebey, for Rolling Stone in 2025, commented that the show is not known for cast drama beyond Acaba's departure, noting that the cast declines to talk about it, and the fan community has largely forbidden any online discussion of the exit. Jones commented that Critical Roles fandom has learned a behavior of erasure in the guise of maintaining a positive attitude from the show itself. The FAQ of The Legend of Vox Machina Kickstarter states that Tiberius would not appear in the show; Jones wrote, while there are many possible reasons for this exclusion, the result is the same: the ultimate distortion of the narrative of Critical Role. Friedman explained that the audience base expanded significantly in the months after Acaba's departure. As a result, different viewers have a different experience of how long Tiberius was a part of Critical Role. Cori McCreery, for WWAC, highlighted Tiberius' exit in the second volume of the prequel comic. She wrote, Part of the beauty of adaptations is that you can change things that no longer fit the story you want to tell. The Critical Role team had a falling out with the actor who played Tiberius, and the character wound up leaving the game pretty early on into the stream, and leaving a bit of a conundrum for adaptations like this and the upcoming cartoon. So while I don't know if they're writing the character out in the comics earlier than he left the game, I do know that they do not plan to use him in the animated series, despite his being present for some of the adventures there. McCreery commented that she would be perfectly fine if the comic adaptation took a page from the medium it's part of and provides everyone with a retcon of the group's past. Friedman noted that Acaba attempted to run an independent spinoff series focused on the character's home country of Draconia, but the show only saw a handful of episodes before it ended. Acaba courted fan appeals to bring back his character, none successful. As of this writing, almost all episodes of the spinoff have been purged from YouTube. The show also faced a different kind of controversy with the Feast of Legends one-shot sponsored by Wendy's in 2019. Following a strong negative fan response to the sponsor, the Critical Role team chose to take down the VOD, and announced via Twitter that they had donated their sponsorship profits from the one-shot to the Farm Worker Justice organization. In 2021, the book The Routledge Handbook of Remix Studies and Digital Humanities highlighted the Feast of Legends one-shot. It states, neither the game itself nor quality of the Critical Role performance was really at issue. Accepting financial support from Wendy's was read among some fans as a tacit acceptance of political positions held by Wendy's. To bring Critical Role into contact with Wendy's was not just bringing professional voice actors into Freshtovia; a whole array of political issues were brought into the mix at the same time. The Critical Role staff scrubbed nearly all evidence of the video from their official feeds and records. The community was significantly jarred by the mashup, not of D&D and fast food, but escapism and politics. Jones commented that decision to remove the Feast of Legends episode was presumably made by the show's development team for purposes of branding and controlling the criticism circulating about the failed experiment. Jones also highlighted that the fan-created wiki followed the show's example and that by scrubbing the episode from their wiki, these fans are erasing any evidence of negativity in an effort to protect their fan object. The show has also been credited with creating the Mercer Effect, a phenomenon where amateur Dungeon Masters feel they will never live up to the standard set by Matthew Mercer. Luke Winkie of Slate commented that the Mercer Effect is the belief that all TTRPG/DnD players expect an experience with the same narrative, immersive, and gameplay qualities as Critical Role. Elisabeth Garber-Paul of Rolling Stone explained that the Mercer Effect is a recent phenomenon wherein amateur DMs feel like they'll never live up to the standard set by Mercer. Mercer has responded numerous times to people asking how to beat this effect and critics who cite Critical Role for creating unattainable standards in the hobby. In a message to the community, he writes, Every game table is different, and should be! If they just want to copy what we do, that's not very creative nor what makes the game magic at the table. Garber-Paul noted Brennan Lee Mulligan, who took over Dungeon Master duties from Mercer for the show's fourth campaign, joked that he has a different definition: The Mercer Effect is me and all my friends having a fucking job.

The Resurgence Of A Game

In 2020, Sarah Whitten of CNBC stated that the resurgence of Dungeons and Dragons began with the release of the new 5th Edition in 2014 which intersected with the Let's Play genre of online videos. Critical Role introduced a whole new audience to Dungeons and Dragons and helped bolster the renaissance of the 46-year-old role-playing game. Whitten wrote, Critical Role isn't just a source of entertainment, it's teaching people how to play Dungeons and Dragons in the same way someone might watch a baseball or football game to gain a basic understanding of the rules and then start playing. In a 2015 interview with Polygon, lead D&D designer Mike Mearls commented about the show, It was really cool, as a guy who works on Dungeons and Dragons, to open up my Twitch app on my iPad and see Dungeons and Dragons in the first row. Critical Role has been credited by VentureBeat as responsible for making actual play shows their own genre of entertainment, and has since become one of the most prominent actual play series. A 2020 qualitative study examining the modern resurgence of Dungeons and Dragons stated that participant responses highlighted Critical Role high quality production value and noteworthy depiction of social fun and fantasy tropes which cultivated a burgeoning interest in D&D play that they believed contributed to the game's resurgence. The authors commented that the criticality of Critical Role was repeatedly mentioned by participants and reveals successful convergence culture in action and the impact this has had on drawing more interest and players towards D&D. The progression of Critical Role from a home tabletop game, to live broadcast, to mass-media partnered animated series, to in-canon campaign guide, exemplifies the prolific impact that convergence culture has had on D&D modern resurgence and popularity. By January 2016, each episode of the show had been watched for more than a million minutes on Twitch, totaling over 37 million minutes watched for the whole series. By 2018 the weekly live game had roughly 30,000 viewers, and each episode was receiving hundreds of thousands of follow-up views on YouTube. Additionally, the Critical Role YouTube channel, which was started in 2018, had over 500 million views. By the time the 100th episode was launched, the channel had amassed over 68 million views overall, reaching over 224 million views. The first episode of campaign one has been watched 15 million times on YouTube. In 2021, Variety reported historically, C.R.'s Twitch channel has attracted 60,000, 75,000 live viewers for each episode. Factoring in on-demand plays on Twitch and YouTube, the total per-episode audience has ranged from 1.2 million to 1.5 million, according to Willingham. The Critical Role audience has grown significantly on Twitch and YouTube year over year. With 1.1 million followers on Twitch, Critical Role is one of many successful enterprises; Twitch's 50 most popular streamers have 4 million followers or more. In October 2021, Business Insider reported that the official Twitch channel had 828,000 followers and 13,530 active subscribers while the official YouTube channel had 1.4 million subscribers. In May 2024, The Washington Post reported, based on data provided to them by Critical Role Productions, that YouTube viewership of Critical Role has increased by 125 percent since 2019, peaking at more than 188 million views on the channel last year. In a January 2016 article, Polygon described Critical Role as a thoroughly modern show with a business model that is still developing. In September 2016, Russ Burlingame of ComicBook.com highlighted that the show has a stellar cast with good chemistry. Burlingame commented that it has also evolved from a pretty simple and low-fi operation in the early days to something much more elaborate and with better production values as time goes on. Early on the show caught the attention of the publishers of Dungeons and Dragons, Wizards of the Coast, who discussed it at length on two occasions on their official D&D podcast in 2015 and 2016, along with cast members Matthew Mercer, Marisha Ray, Liam O'Brien, Laura Bailey and former member Orion Acaba. Andy Wilson, for Bleeding Cool, highlighted Critical Role as the best show he has watched all year in 2020. He wrote, I've said repeatedly that Critical Role is the future of television, and specifically praising their response to COVID that continued their show in a safe way where no one has gotten sick. Let me pause there a moment: no one has gotten sick. They have been smart and responsible and safe. But even more important is what they did this year. They are, weekly, one of the most-watched streams on Twitch. They gave fans something to look forward to every week, an incredible feat given the endless monotony and despair of socially distant quarantine life. Noelle Warner of CBR commented on how the show has become more polished since the first campaign with the cast spending far less time on activities in-game that viewers might consider dull to watch and instead focused on creating compelling narrative moments between Matt Mercer's carefully crafted encounters. Warner stated that the main show itself has become more theatrical than ever, with cast members carefully planning their every move and leaning hard into the show's classic, jovial improvisation , which may be heavily curated improvisation but is still spontaneous nonetheless. She highlighted that some fans view the show as having lost something that made it magical in the first place by shifting to a more polished presentation; however, Warner viewed the evolution of the show in a more positive light since it has done a phenomenal job of maintaining its voice and vision as the years have gone on. Rebekah Krum, for CBR in November 2023, highlighted how the Exandria campaign setting was created by Mercer for the first campaign and that though they started out using a standard pantheon of D&D and Pathfinder deities, all other elements of Critical Role's worldbuilding were and are homebrew. Krum stated that at the time of Critical Role's premiere most professionally produced actual plays were officially licensed by or connected with Wizards of the Coast and set in the preexisting Dungeons and Dragons world, featuring settings like Eberron or the Forgotten Realms. By basing the series in a homebrewed world, Critical Role ensured that all viewers had access to the same lore information, regardless of their level of experience with Dungeons and Dragons. Cheryl Teh of Business Insider highlighted that the third campaign has many callbacks to the previous campaigns which is nerdy nostalgia at its finest , the depth of Critical Role lore over three campaigns is a testament to how it's becoming sustainable as a long-term phenomenon. Chris King, in his review of Exandria Unlimited for Polygon, commented that despite Critical Role's commercial success, criticisms of the show have been mounting over the years, first, that the cast wasn't diverse enough and, second, that there was really no easy way in to understanding this world without starting all the way back at the beginning. King felt the show did not succeed as an entry for new fans, however, Exandria Unlimited is still a big step in the right direction. Iyengar's work here goes a long way toward proving that Critical Role doesn't always need Mercer at the head of the table to succeed. King wrote, Exandria Unlimited has been able to retain what makes Critical Role so beloved by so many fans, while bringing new voices to the table. It's not an adventure for the uninitiated, but instead an interstitial adventure filled with pre-existing lore and in-jokes to old campaigns, and no clear starting point for new fans to connect with. But it's still a lot of fun. Academic Jan Švelch, in a 2022 article examining the mediatization of tabletop role-playing, commented that Critical Role approach to tabletop role-playing is notably traditional in terms of a clear preference of in-person play with physical accessories except for the use of D&D Beyond as a digital replacement for paper character sheets. In other words, Critical Role promotes and celebrates analog play despite its mediated form. Furthermore, Critical Role's aspirational status among role-playing communities, exemplified by the so-called Mercer effect, is not limited to the cast's acting and storytelling skills, but arguably extends to the lavish presentation of its gaming table with artisan-made accessories and detailed battle dioramas. Critical Role makes full use of this new mediatized reality of tabletop role-playing and its underlying economic logics, providing both spectator entertainment and extensive physical merchandising.

The Foundation And The Future

Critical Role's commercial success has led to many other related products, including a prequel comic series, art books, a novel, two campaign setting books, and two animated series. Hobby and toy stores sell miniatures and other collectibles related to Critical Role. On the 16th of October 2015, the Extra Life fundraiser episode raised over $20,000 for the Children's Miracle Network during the broadcast. This charity episode included a reappearance of the Critical Rejects, as well as three members of the Critical Role cast: Liam O'Brien, Marisha Ray, and Orion Acaba. During the show, viewers are invited to donate money to 826LA, which is later provided in a lump sum to the charity. Donation amounts and messages appear live on the stream, and on earlier episodes, a list of donors was read at the end of each session. During Geek and Sundry's 2015 Extra Life fundraiser, a special interactive episode was broadcast. This episode alone brought in over $20,000 for the Children's Miracle Network, and the event as a whole raised over $76,000. In late November 2015, Geek and Sundry's Twitch channel held a special Doctors Without Borders fundraiser, with nearly half of the $10,000 goal being raised during the four-hour Critical Role broadcast. In December 2015, the cast released an article on Geek and Sundry, Critter's Guide to Critmas, in response to the flood of gifts they were receiving from fans, asking them to instead donate to a variety of charities, with a different cast member sponsoring each charity. In Spring 2018, the show held a charity drive for 826LA which resulted in community members donating over $50,000, with a matching amount given by one generous community member. The drive resulted in some prizes being unlocked for the community, such as discount codes for D&D Beyond and Wyrmwood Gaming, a second Fireside Chat with Mercer, and a second one-shot of the game Honey Heist run by Ray. Critical Role Productions launched a new 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, Critical Role Foundation, in September 2020 with the mission statement: To leave the world better than we found it. Comic Book Resources reported that Critical Role Foundation will partner with other organizations in the nonprofit sector that share the same values as Critical Role and its community, in addition to raising emergency relief funds to be put toward immediate humanitarian aid as needed. Its inaugural partnership will be with First Nations Development Institute, which seeks to strengthen Native American economies and communities. CRF aims to raise $50,000 for First Nations, which will fund the Native Youth and Culture Fund for two initiatives over the course of one year. In May 2024, Critical Role Productions launched their boutique subscription streaming service Beacon with the Critical Role broadcast and VODs available to subscribers of the platform. They announced a new programming slate for Beacon including shows related to the main series , Critical Role Cooldown and Critical Role Abridged. Critical Role Cooldown, exclusively available on Beacon, is an immediate aftershow with the cast still at the table which airs after each episode of Critical Role and Critical Role Abridged, available for early access on the platform, which condenses and streamlines the Critical Role show to 60, 90 minute episodes starting with Campaign Three. Cheryl Teh of Business Insider stated that Beacon essentially gives people what they get with a Twitch subscription, but with some additional perks. On the 100th episode of Critical Role, the launch of the Critical Role podcast was announced: an audio version of the game sessions. It is available on iTunes, Spotify, Google Play Music, and at the Geek and Sundry website. The first campaign's podcast episodes were released in batches of 10, 15, between the 8th of June 2017, and the 8th of January 2018. Academic Emily Friedman highlighted the length of the first campaign at 447 hours, 39 minutes. She noted that the podcast is often recommended to new listeners because it can be listened to on accelerated speed with the listener supplementing their experience with strategic viewing of notable visual moments. Since the start of the second campaign, the podcast episodes have been released on the following Thursday. Starting in May 2024, the podcast is available same day to Beacon subscribers. In August 2025, it was announced that for the fourth campaign, the podcast episodes will drop in two parts: the first one the week after the premiere, and the second on the following Tuesday. Exandria Unlimited is an anthology series which premiered on the 24th of June 2021, and is a spin-off of the main Critical Role series. IGN reported, in June 2021, that Exandria Unlimited will be considered canon within the wider Critical Role story, and will affect future environments and timelines across the overall lore of Critical Role. So as fans await what may come from Campaign 3 of the core CR cast, Unlimited looks to offer a new vantage point into the world of Exandria. The first season is set in the city of Emon on the continent of Tal'Dorei 30 years after Campaign One and 10 years after Campaign Two. It features Aabria Iyengar as the game master. A two-part adventure continuation of the first season, titled Exandria Unlimited: Kymal, premiered in March 2022. The second season, titled Exandria Unlimited: Calamity, is set in the Age of Arcanum , almost 1,000 years before the Critical Role series. It was broadcast from May 26 to the 16th of June 2022. It features Brennan Lee Mulligan as the Dungeon Master. Mulligan returned as the Dungeon Master for the third season, titled Exandria Unlimited: Divergence, which premiered on the 13th of February 2025; the season focuses on mortals rebuilding the world after the destruction of the Calamity. An all-ages actual play podcast set in Exandria featuring a group of adventurers rejected from the monster hunting group The Slayer's Take. This canonical game uses the Dungeons and Dragons 5th Edition ruleset. It features George Primavera and Nick Williams as the Dungeon Masters and stars Jasmine Bhullar, Jasper William Cartwright, Caroline Lux, and Jasmine Chiong as the players. The show premiered on the 20th of May 2024. Beacon subscribers have early access to the show. Wildemount Wildlings is a spin-off which premiered on the 3rd of April 2025. The three episode limited series focuses on teenage campers at the Wildemount Wildlings Camp for Adventuring Kids and their two Mighty Nein camp counselors with Sam Riegel as the gamemaster. The players are Eden Riegel, Aleks Le, Brennan Lee Mulligan and Libe Barer as new characters with Ray and Johnson reprising their Campaign 2 characters, Beauregard and Yasha, respectively. The show has won numerous awards, including Streamy Awards in 2016 and 2018, Webby Awards in 2019 and 2025, Shorty Awards in 2019 and 2021, and The Streamer Awards in 2021. The show has also been recognized for its charity work, winning the 2022 Shorty Impact Award for Best Fundraising Campaign. The show has also been recognized for its podcast, winning the 2025 Webby Award for Podcasts Features , Best Partnership or Collaboration. The show has also been recognized for its animated series, with The Legend of Vox Machina winning the 2022 Webby Award for Video Series & Channels , Games. The show has also been recognized for its live events, with the 2025 live tour being the company's largest-ever theatrical distribution agreement. The show has also been recognized for its community engagement, with the Critical Role Foundation raising over $50,000 for First Nations Development Institute. The show has also been recognized for its innovation, with the use of multi-camera setups and the development of the Beacon streaming service. The show has also been recognized for its cultural impact, with the Mercer Effect and the resurgence of Dungeons and Dragons. The show has also been recognized for its longevity, with four campaigns and multiple spin-offs. The show has also been recognized for its future, with the upcoming 2026 live tour and the continued development of the Critical Role universe.

Common questions