The Super Powered Fancast

Critical Role is celebrating its Ten-Year Anniversary and while I continue to be a fan of not only the live stream campaigns, animated series, books and other media, the rumor of an upcoming video game from the team of talented voice actors has gotten my attention and made my critter brain go into overdrive with speculation.

Video games have been a huge part of my life since I was a kid with my Atari 2600 and I have marveled at not only the changes in technology over the decades, but also the emphasis on and ability to tell bigger and more complex using the medium. Critical Role has excelled in being able to combine great characters with great story, humor, action and world building on a scale that rivals and often exceeds many modern movie and television studios so taking that talent to the world of video games is something I and many fans have long been waiting for.

As I continue to tell stories with my friends while playing my half-elven sorcerer in our Curse of Strahd campaign, I have also allowed myself to become immersed in the worlds of Larian Studios’ Baldur’s Gate III as well as BioWare’s Dragon Age: The Veilguard. Both games have given me the kind of character creation and world immersion that I enjoy both in my own campaigns and in the ones created by Matthew Mercer and company.

When talk began about a possible Critical Role video game, I became immediately interested and thought about all of the things that I would want from a game championed by a group who has left their mark on the industry in many ways and I believe I can trust to make something not only they would be proud of, but something that would deliver hours of fun and enjoyment to video game fans across the generations.

With that in mind, here are five things that I would love to see in an upcoming Critical Role video game.

The game must take place on Exandria

For ten years, Matthew Mercer has been taking audiences on a journey through the world he created in his mind. A world of gods and monsters. A world brimming with magic, secret societies, otherworldly horrors and soaring beauty. From the tense politics of the continent of Wildemount to the mystery of the floating islands of the Shattered Teeth, Exandria is world brimming with history with lands that have yet to be explored and planes that could spawn new and unique stories. Each campaign has started on a new continent and while each one has captured my imagination, I have loved seeing how these continents connect with each other either through the characters or the mysteries they are investigating.

I would love for a Critical Role game to have an open world setting that allows you to explore those continents either by traveling via Skyship, sailing the open seas of the Lucidian Ocean or even teleporting. I would also love for the player to choose which continent they would like to start the game on and have each experience be different from the politics to the NPC’s. As someone who has not only watched all three campaigns and every side story including Exandria Unlimited, the world created by Critical Role is a rich tapestry that I feel the campaigns have only scratched the surface of. A video game set in Exandria opens that world up to more stories that the players can have a hand in crafting and creating in order to give them a sense of being in the place that has lived in so many our collective imaginations.

The game needs to have an insane amount of character creation.

Character creation is a central tenant in all role playing games and since Critical Role has been fueled by its characters since the beginning, any video game from the company needs to make sure that character creation is an important part of the game they develop and present to the world. That being said, I DON’T want to play as a member of Vox Machina, The Mighty Nein or Bell’s Hells. Do I want them in the game? Absolutely! Do I want to play as Grog, Jester or Laudna? Absolutely not!

Don’t get me wrong, playing any of these characters would be amazing, but I would rather encounter these characters during my own game then be limited by playing them and being part of their story. I want to write my own story as I travel the length and breadth of Exandria.

Currently, I am playing a character in my Curse of Strahd campaign that I love and what made me fall in love with that character was the creativity it took to make him interesting both in who he is and what he wants. I want that same freedom in a Critical Role game. I want the game to allow me to become anyone regardless of race or gender. In fact, I want the ability to become whatever gender I prefer and have the option to change that gender should the narrative of the story call for it.

Also, I need for the cast of Critical Role to voice not only the epic characters they created, but also the NPC’s that I have grown to love both watching the live stream as well as the animated series. On my journey throughout Exandria I want to stop at Gilmore’s Glorious Goods to buy supplies and spell components. I want to see a show at the Lavish Chateau in Nicodranus and I want to travel the streets of Jrusar and encounter the factions that live in the area.

The game needs awesome combat mechanics.

Two of the games that have successfully scratched my RPG itch recently have been both Baldur’s Gate III and Dragon Age: The Veilguard. Both games have created wonderfully immersive experiences for me as a Dungeons and Dragons fan. While Baldur’s Gate uses a traditional D&D dice throwing aesthetic for its combat, Dragon Age tends to be a little more freeform.

For a potential Critical Role video game, I would love a hybrid of the two. I am a huge believer in the “rule of cool” when it comes to tabletop gaming so I would love to have combat that allows you to do insane moves, but the dice ultimately decide if you succeed. I want great squad based combat that allows for every player in the party to support and enhance the combat

experience and as an added bonus, when a player gets to the point of finishing off an enemy, I want a voiceover of Matthew Mercer asking me; “How do you want to do this?”

Now I know that every insane thing I want to do as a finishing move would be an impossible task given the technology, but a drop-down menu that allows me to choose my finisher based on my class, weapon or spells would give the player a great way to craft a finishing move that is uniquely tied to their character. Each finishing move could also be a mini cutscene like in Mortal Kombat to make those kills more dramatic. Does this mean it should be applied to every enemy NPC? No. It should be attached to any story based enemy combatant or boss fight.

As far as playing with others, I need the combat to reflect working with a party by having the ability to buff and enhance combat moments with other players or friendly NPC’s. I want to feel like my party and I are working together towards a common goal rather than a group of NPC’s just following my lead. I think that a CR game should encourage working with a group to create your own adventuring party, but also allow for a separate single-player story that allows the character to either join another party or fight alongside characters from other campaigns.

The game needs a cast of characters that celebrates ten years of Critical Role.

Matthew Mercer, Marisha Ray, Travis Willingham, Laura Bailey, Sam Reigel, Liam O’Brien, Ashley Johnson and Taliesen Jaffe have not only created great stories for fans to enjoy, but they have created memorable characters across multiple campaigns that fans have come to care about.

Any Critical Role based video game should be the perfect platform for not only the cast to shine as the characters they’ve created, but it should also allow them to expand on elements of those characters that they might not have been able to during the campaign. Admittedly, there is a part of me that wants my character to receive a pair of leather boots made by Grog or to have gone to the Soltryce Academy with Caleb. I would love the game to add in all of the characters that have made it so memorable both in the main campaigns and the side stories.

I’m not a huge fan of DLC content in games, but Critical Role has crafted such an interesting world that I would welcome DLC storylines that explore it from different perspectives and I would love to have not only members of the cast narrate those stories, but also guest DM’s like Aabria Iyengar and Brennen Lee Mulligan narrate as well.

The cast of Critical Role has given me hours of entertainment throughout the years and their plans to expand the empire they’ve created continue to make me excited. A Critical Role based video game is a big deal to me as a gamer and fan and I know all of the things I want from a game are next to impossible, but this creative group of nerdy ass voice actors could definitely pull it off.

What would you like to see from a Critical Role based video game? Let me know in the comments.