Critical Role's Matthew Mercer would love to make a video game - if those stars align
“To leap into video games would be an incredible endeavor.”
Dungeon master for Critical Role, Matthew Mercer, has expressed an interest in potentially making a video game.
Mercer is the DM for Critical Role, an actual play video series in which a group of actors film themselves playing Dungeons & Dragons. Beginning in 2015, the main series is currently on its third season, alongside several spin-off series and one-shot events. Besides Mercer, who has performed in various roles such as Cole Cassidy in Overwatch, the cast of Critical Role includes Laura Bailey (The Last of Us Part II), Ashley Johnson (The Last of Us Part I and II), Travis Willingham, Sam Riegel, Taliesin Jaffe, Liam O’Brien and Marisha Ray.
Besides the actual play series – which recently saw its first live show in the UK – Critical Role has been adapted into an animated television series by Amazon Studios called The Legend of Vox Machina, which focuses on the first season of the actual play series. Ahead of the upcoming third season of The Legend of Vox Machina, it was also announced that the second season of Critical Role – which centered around the adventures of The Mighty Nein – would be adapted into its own animated series.
Members of Critical Role are also involved in a tabletop publishing company called Darrington Press, which has previously released titles directly based on the actual play series – such as Uk’otoa. Darrington Press has recently published a new tabletop RPG based on the Illuminated Worlds gameplay system called Candela Obscura, which sees players becoming investigators into strange happenings during the 1920s.
In an interview with Dicebreaker, when asked whether video games would be the next frontier for Critical Role and Darrington Press, Mercer responded that “the leap into video games would be an incredible endeavor and would require the right idea, the right development studio and the right budget.” Nevertheless, the actor and DM appeared enthusiastic about the idea: “I would love to see that in the future, should all those stars align!”
With the success of Baldur’s Gate 3 this year – the third entry in a video game series specifically set within the world of D&D’s Forgotten Realms universe – it could be possible that other tabletop RPG-focused franchises will be seeing a video game adaptation in the future.