THE LEGEND OF VOX MACHINA. An unprecedented event, Amazon Prime Video is broadcasting the animated adaptation of a Dungeons and Dragons role-playing campaign led by the Critical Role band. You don’t know anything about it? Here’s everything you need to know before watching the series.
Amazon Prime Video welcomes a new animated series: The Legend of Vox Machina. This is the animated adaptation of an adventure led by Critical Role, a band of American comedians who meet weekly on Twitch to broadcast their role-playing games. Started in 2015, this adventure very quickly became a real phenomenon in the United States and around the world, with millions of views recorded on Twitch and Youtube. Funded on Kickstarter, The Legend of Vox Machina was initially to be a double episode before turning into a season of ten episodes then two seasons of a total of 24 episodes broadcast on Amazon Prime Video. In Vox Machina, we follow a group of disparate adventurers who, from second-class warriors, will travel the medieval-fantasy world of Exandria and become, feat after feat, true heroes. Intended resolutely for an informed public, the series The Legend of Vox Machina allows itself many swear words and does not skimp on hemoglobin. It is therefore not designed for children, as evidenced by the trailer below.
Critical Role is a group of American actors mainly known for their contributions to the dubbing of animated series and video games who, from 2015, meet live on Twitch to share their role-playing campaigns with viewers. (under the popular system of Dungeons and Dragons 5and editing). In short, a tabletop role-playing game consists of bringing together players who embody imaginary characters most often endowed with extraordinary powers. They carry out missions in the universe described by the game master who regularly asks them to roll one or more dice to know the result of their actions.
Vox Machina, the first role-playing campaign created by Critical Role, aired on Geek & Sundry’s Twitch channel from 2015 to 2017. For two and a half years and nearly 373 hours of broadcasts, fans of the program have followed the adventures of the group of mercenaries, characterized by their love of booze, below-the-belt jokes and scathing repartee. The series The Legend of Vox Machina broadcast on Amazon Prime Video is the broad adaptation of this role-playing campaign.
In March 2019, Critical Role is organizing a huge crowdfunding campaign on Kickstarter to raise the funds needed to host a special double episode revealing part of the origins of Vox Machina. A partnership is announced with the animation studio Titmouse, which we know in particular for having worked on the animation series Big Mouth (Netflix), Motorcity or Star Trek: Lower Decks. The $750,000 needed to produce the episode was reached in just a few hours, and by the end of the campaign, Critical Role (or “Critters”) fans had raised a whopping $11 million. To this day, Vox Machina and Critical Role still hold the record for the most funded film or series project on Kickstarter. Thanks to the generosity of its fans, Critical Role can now consider hosting not a double episode but 10 episodes for what will now be a series dedicated to adapting part of the Vox Machina campaign.
In October 2019, Critical Role announced that they had signed a streaming partnership with Amazon Prime Video which would, in effect, become the home of The Legend of Vox Machina. It does not stop there since Amazon has also planned to invest in the animated series to the point that it will now consist of two seasons of 12 episodes. Prime Video is therefore ordering 14 more episodes than was planned at the end of the fundraising campaign, which will therefore allow the series to adapt even more key moments from Critical Role’s first adventure. A clause of the deal between Critical Role and Amazon Prime Video also provides that this partnership develops to other series thereafter. It is easy to imagine that an animated adaptation of the second campaign (dedicated to the group of Mighty Nein) could be offered to Amazon Prime Video if the success of Vox Machina is there.
Originally scheduled for release at the end of 2020, the Vox Machina series has been delayed first of all because of its change in scale: animating 40 minutes is not the same as animating six times more for Season 1. Finally, The Legend of Vox Machina series lands on Amazon Prime Video on January 28, 2022 for a three-episode burst broadcast every Friday.
After the success of funding on Kickstarter, fans of Critical Role were guaranteed to be able to discover a first season of The Legend of Vox Machina. As soon as the announcement of the arrival of Amazon Prime Video as a broadcast partner, a second season was announced. This one will be composed of 12 episodes too. However, no release date has yet been revealed for season 2 of Vox Machina.
The main band members of Critical Role are all well-known in the field of dubbing animated series or video games. Matt Mercer, game master and narrator of Critical Role’s various campaigns, is best known for playing Cassidy in the game Overwatch and Leon S. Kennedy in Resident Evil 6. Ashley Johnson (Pike) is known for playing the role of ‘Ellie in both episodes of The Last of Us. She also stars in the series Blindspot. Laura Bailey has lent her voice to several video game characters such as Jaina in World of Warcraft or Abby in The Last of Us 2. Travis Willingham is a regular in animated series and video games. He dubbed the Kingpin in the Spider-Man game released on PS4 in 2018. Taliesin Jaffe is known to dubbing recording studios, both as an actor and as a voice director. For example, he doubles Flash in the video game Injustice 2. Finally, Liam O’Brien has worked on many anime dubbings (he plays Gaara in the American adaptations of Naruto) or video games (Illidan Stormrage in World of Warcraft) . All resume their roles in the Vox Machina series. Matt Mercer, meanwhile, doubles a few secondary characters in the series while other actors take over some of the other characters he lent his voice to in Campaign 1 of Critical Role.
To bring the continent of Tal’Dorei and the characters invented by Matt Mercer to life, many actors were recruited in addition to the main actors of Critical Role. In the cast, we will thus find the voices of Stephanie Beatriz (Brooklyn 99), Rory McCann (Sandor Clegane in Game of Thrones), Khary Payton (Ezekiel in The Walking Dead), David Tennant (Doctor Who) or even Dominic Monaghan (Merry in The Lord of the Rings). But that’s not all. See the full cast of The Legend of Vox Machina below.
- Matt Mercer: Sylas Briarwood / additional vocals
- Ashley Johnson: Pike Trickfoot (gnome cleric)
- Travis Willingham: Grog Strongjaw (goliath barbarian)
- Laura Bailey: Vex’ahlia “Vex” Vessar (half-elf ranger)
- Liam O’Brien: Vax’ildan “Vax” Vessar (half-elf rogue)
- Taliesin Jaffe: Percival “Percy” Fredrickstein Von Musel Klossowski from Rolo III (human gunslinger)
- Marisha Ray: Keyleith of the Air Ashari (half-elf druid)
- Sam Riegel: Scanlan Shorthalt (gnome bard)
- Stephanie Beatriz: Lady Kima
- Rory McCann: Duke Vedmire
- Khary Payton: King Uriel Tal’Dorei
- David Tennant: General Krieg
- Dominic Monaghan: Archibald Desnay
- Eugene Byrd: Jarrett
- Esme Creed-Miles: Cassandra deRolo
- Darin DePaul: Kerrion Stonefell
- Gray Griffin: Delilah Briarwood
- Tony Hale: Sir Fince
- Kelly Hu: Dr Anna Ripley
- Sunil Malhotra: Shaun Gilmore
- Max Mittelman: Desmond
- Stephen Root: Professor Anders
- Tracie Thoms: The Everlight
- Gina Torres: Keeper Yennen
- Indira Varma: Lady Allura Vysoren