In just a few hours the Critical Role: The Legend of Vox Machina Animated Special has smashed through its Kickstarter goal of $1 Million AUD (~$750,000 USD) and is sitting at $5.4 Million AUD (~$3.8 Million USD ) at the time of writing.
Critical Role is a weekly live-streamed Dungeons & Dragons game featuring a group of prominent voice actors, who happen to be best friends.
The special animation episode follows on from the Critical Role: Vox Machina Origins comic that launched in 2017, plus countless fan animated YouTube videos.
This new project is billed as “‘Guardians of the Galaxy’ meets Dungeons & Dragons” has smashed Kickstarter crowdfunding records for a campaign of its size — raising more than $2 million in less than four hours.
The animated special is planned to be released in the fall of 2020, and Kickstarter contributors are slated to get rewards in May 2020. Contributors are promised a range of perks depending on their funding level.
In the video above, the Critical Role team explains their reasoning for going through Kickstarter to raise money,
“Our budget is $750,000 which is way more than any media company wanted to take a chance on”
Originally, Critical Role launched its show in 2015 with Legendary Digital Networks’ Geek & Sundry, before moving to its own studio last summer and officially splitting from Geek & Sundry and Legendary Digital Networks last month.
New live streams and on-demand replays of Critical Role are available exclusively on Critical Role’s own channels.
