Nearing Critical Role’s 10 year anniversary, the cast is thinking a bit about what they want to leave as their legacy. When asked by Rolling Stone about the future in broad terms, Matthew Mercer suggested he was already thinking about how to invest in creatives beyond the core cast.
“I hope to one day pass the torch to a bunch of incredible people with new ideas and new perspectives,” he said, “and give them the space to tell their stories.”
During the wide-ranging interview, the cast revealed a sense of awe and gratitude for their success, touched on the weight of triggering a renewed global interest in tabletop gaming, and how they’ve changed since launching that first stream on Geek & Sundry. When they spoke to Polygon in 2022 the team was in a very similar mindset. But as the third arc of Critical Role’s main campaign is coming to an end, the question arises of what happens to everything they’ve built when the cast of Critical Role is done playing pretend publicly.
It doesn’t seem like the tabletop company’s growth is slowing down anytime soon. What started off as a streamed game of Dungeons & Dragons starring a group of renowned voice actors has grown into a transmedia empire that encompasses a streaming platform, a publishing arm, a philanthropic organization, touring live shows, comic books, novels, and an acclaimed animated show that recently got renewed for a fourth season and a spinoff.
When asked how excited the Critical Role community should be about their plans for the show’s 10th anniversary, cast member Sam Riegel joked that fans should feel “Mid,” before alluding to upcoming live shows, the Mighty Nein animated series, and expanded programming on the subscription-based streaming platform Beacon.
CEO Travis Willingham said that a Critical Role video game is an “active pursuit” but that the company is “starting to come to the end of a long road.” Willingham also stated that he hopes to have something to share at the turn of the new year, but with the “upheaval” in the interactive space — potentially referencing the tens of thousands of people who have been laid off in the game industry in recent years — the company is waiting to see how it fits into the larger industry.
The interview ended with that nod to the future. On the topic of legacy, Liam O’Brien noted the millennia-long tradition of storytelling that tabletop gaming, and their influence on the medium, continues to proliferate. Mercer, in his suggestion of passing the torch, said that while what he and his colleagues have built at Critical Role is not only for them, it’s also for “the next generation of storytellers.”
While the idea of “passing the torch” sounds far off, it’s a promise that the group has already made good on. Alongside its own original intellectual properties Critical Role has acquired independent shows like Midst and Tales from the Stinky Dragon, put independent games back into print like Alex Robert’s For The Queen, all while paying creatives in tabletop gaming, animation, and actual play — industries which notoriously operate on shoestring budgets.
While they’ve laid out most of their secrets already, the team at Critical Role is moving into 2025 eager for what their 10th year holds for them and their audience. Even without anything new, their work lit a torch in the tabletop space that is going to keep burning for a long, long time.
Source：https://www.polygon.com/critical-role/489649/critical-role-future-series-cast-members
