The Legend Of Vox Machina - What We Know So Far
Dungeons & Dragons is more popular than ever these days — as reported by Forbes, 2020 was the seventh straight year that the game saw an increase in players, which numbered more than 50 million at the time of this writing. Playing D&D can be a blast, but it's also plenty of fun to listen to professional entertainers break out the dice and embark on their own adventures.
That's why Critical Role's online campaigns are so popular, and why "The Legend of Vox Machina" exists. The upcoming series will be an animated adaptation of one of Critical Role's legendary campaigns, which feature eight well-known voice actors rolling characters and going on classic fantasy adventures. But the real fun isn't so much the adventures but, rather, the characters; they're all a bunch of lovable losers who are easy to root for.
Here's everything we know so far about the upcoming collaboration between Critical Role, Amazon Studios, and Titmouse, "The Legend of Vox Machina."
What is the release date for The Legend of Vox Machina?
As reported by Variety, Amazon Studios just announced the release date for the first season of "The Legend of Vox Machina" at a panel event with the cast at New York City Comic-Con. The animated series will premiere on Tuesday, February 22, 2022, exclusively on Amazon Prime Video.
Amazon had already ordered the first two seasons of "The Legend of Vox Machina" back in 2019 (via Variety). The project originated as a Kickstarter that year, with Critical Role raising $11.39 million over its initial $750,000 goal, which was intended to launch a 22-minute animated special.
Luckily for fans, you won't have to wait quite that long to check out the show. During the panel event, Amazon also released the official opening titles, which are animated by Titmouse and available on YouTube. Even better, the cast performed a live reading of one of the scenes from the first season, which is also available on YouTube.
Even better than that, Critical Role's third official campaign will be underway even sooner, on October 21 (via Critical Role).
Who is in the cast of The Legend of Vox Machina?
"The Legend of Vox Machina" will feature the same eight voice actors who participate in Critical Role's ongoing campaigns, all playing the same characters they originally played in the first campaign. (The second campaign involved an entirely different party of adventurers.)
The squad includes Matthew Mercer as the Dungeon Master, Laura Bailey as the half-elf ranger-rogue Vex'ahlia Vessar, Taliesin Jaffe as the human gunslinger Percival de Rolo, Ashley Johnson as the gnome cleric Pike Trickfoot, Liam O'Brien as the half-elf paladin-rogue-druid Vax'ildan Vessar, Marisha Ray as the half-elf druid Keyleth, Sam Riegel as the gnome bard Scanlan Shorthalt, and Travis Willingham as the goliath barbarian-fighter Grog Strongjaw.
The cast is all credited as executive producers, as are Brandon Auman ("Star Wars: Resistance") and Chris Prynoski ("Metalocalypse"). The show's supervising director is Sung Jin Ahn ("Niko and the Sword of Light") (via Variety).
What is the plot of The Legend of Vox Machina?
If you're a fan of the Critical Role webseries, you should enjoy the animated version, too. As reported by Variety, "The Legend of Vox Machina" will be an adaptation of the first campaign of the same name.
The series follows a ragtag group of "second-rate mercenaries" who all meet in a tavern in the swamp town of Stilben, desperate for work. After a series of paid gigs, like investigating a competing merchant organization on behalf of an elf and infiltrating a mage's tower to steal a brass fox, eventually the main quest emerges: locating the missing Lady Kima of Vord, who's traveled to an underground dwarven city of Kraghammer, hoping to defeat an ancient evil.
Part of the appeal for the series is how the adventurers eventually bond over time and become each other's found family. So, expect plenty of fights and mayhem, but also drunken antics and Big Feelings. Roll for initiative.