Critical Role The Legend of Vox Machina – All you need to know

The world-famous online game of Critical Role is getting an animated adaptation!

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Who said playing Dungeons & Dragons with your friends was a waste of time? From graphic novels to – now – an animated show, Critical Role is paving the way for the world of Dungeons & Dragons.

The Legend of Vox Machina has finally gotten a trailer and it looks absolutely stunning. Although we did get a promo pic, showcasing the art style, this is the first time we’ve seen it in action. But I’m going to run through what you should expect from this show. Whether you’re a die-hard critter, or you know nothing about it, this will hopefully clear things up for you!

Who are Vox Machina?

In order to answer that question, you need to know what Critical Role is! Critical Role is a web series of various professional voice actors who play Dungeons & Dragons, a table top roleplaying game. Each member of the cast would create and play as their own character. Each of which were a different class who could interact with the world differently. Each of these characters would experience the story written by the Dungeon Master, Matthew Mercer.

When playing Dungeons & Dragons, large-spanning stories are usually called campaigns. These campaigns feature various characters following the same over-arching story. The first Critical Role campaign was such a huge success, it featured the adventuring group called ‘Vox Machina‘. Vox Machina features a variety of characters, each played by a different cast member:

• Laura Bailey played Vex’ahlia, the half-elf.
• Taliesin Jaffe played Percival de Rolo, the human.
• Ashley Johnson played Pike Trickfoot, the gnome.
• Liam O’Brien played Vax’ildan the half-elf.
• Marisha Ray played Keyleth, the half-elf.
• Sam Riegal played Scanlan Shorthalt the gnome.
• Travis Willingham played Grog Strongjaw the goliath.
• Matthew Mercer played all the various NPCs and told the overarching story.

What is ‘The Legend of Vox Machina’ show?

On March 4th 2019, Critical Role announced they would crowdfund their own animated episode of the Vox Machina gang up to no good. The original idea was that they would animate two episodes that told a new and unique story. All the cast from Critical Role would – of course – voice their respective characters.

However… In a matter of 40 minutes, the Kickstart campaign already hit its initial goal of $750,000. Then two more hours into the campaign and $1.5M was raised. The sheer number of people who wanted to see this project come to fruition was obvious. Within a matter of days, The Legend of Vox Machina became the most funded TV and Film project in all of Kickstarter history.

The Kickstarter campaign ended with a whopping $11,385,449.00 raised to bring this project to life.

A full-length series

When the Kickstarter campaign first kicked off, the plan was for it to be a single episode. However, after the sheer success of the campaign, Amazon Prime Video picked up on the series. Offering to publish it on their platform, as well as commissioning some additional episodes.

The KS campaign helped fund 10 episodes in total. But Amazon’s partnership allowed for an additional 14 episodes. Now, The Legend of Vox Machina will have two whole seasons, with a grand total of 24 episodes.

The series will follow certain popular story arcs from the campaign, however, the team have prefaced that anyone can watch the series. Even if you’ve never seen a Critical Role episode before, they’ve made sure to be newcomer-friendly. But those who are long-standing fans will be happy to see the Briarwood arc being fully animated and showcased!

Why ‘Vox Machina’?

The original name of the group was the Super High-Intensity Team, but the players decided to abandon the name once they began to gain renown because of the acronym that it spelled out, although they still occasionally refer to themselves as “the S.H.I.T.s”. The group debated calling themselves the Order of the Brotherhood of the Sisterhood, but chose the name Vox Machina. Vox Machina is latin for “voice machine”, a nod to the cast of voice actors.

The Legend of Vox Machina release date

The animated show will be premiering on Amazon Prime Video on February 4th 2022.

If that’s too far away then don’t worry, Critical Role are premiering Campaign 3 on October 21st. Read more about that here!