Earlier this month, the actual play phenomenon Critical Role announced a pretty big shakeup for its upcoming fourth campaign. Matt Mercer, who had led each of the group’s previous stories as the game master, will instead take on a player role, and Dimension 20’s Brennan Lee Mulligan will step up to lead the next campaign in October. Now, we know what campaign four will entail, and it sounds much more complex than anything Critical Role has done before.
In a 17-minute presentation, Mulligan outlined his plans for the campaign, and it sounds pretty ambitious. Rather than being set in Exandria, the world where Critical Role’s first three stories took place, this season will see the players enter a new world. Mulligan is dividing the 13 cast members into three distinct groups: Soldiers, Schemers, and Seekers, with each tackling the new fantasy setting and story from a different angle. As such, not every cast member will be present for each episode as it jumps between different perspectives. The announcement didn’t confirm which cast members would be in each group, but it did solidify that Critical Role‘s founding members will all be returning. The full cast is as follows:
- Laura Bailey
- Luis Carazo
- Robbie Daymond
- Aabria Iyengar
- Taliesin Jaffe
- Ashley Johnson
- Matthew Mercer
- Whitney Moore
- Liam O’Brien
- Marisha Ray
- Sam Riegel
- Alex Ward
- Travis Willingham
Now that it’s confirmed the founding members will return for campaign four, some of Critical Role’s fans are more optimistic about all the changes on the way, though others are still skeptical about the structure, given that the entire crew won’t be playing together. At least, not at first. It’s entirely possible the story goes in a direction that sees all these disparate groups end up together down the line, which sounds like it would make for a sick finale, but will likely not happen until years from now. The first episode is set to premiere on October 2.
