Critical Role To Wrap Up Third Campaign, New Exandria Unlimited Miniseries Announced

Critical Role's third campaign will end next week with an extra-sized final episode. Today, the popular streaming series announced that its third campaign would wrap up on February 6th with an 8.5 hour episode. The series finale is being called the "conclusion to this chapter in Exandrian history, and the dawn of a new age." The third campaign followed a group of adventurers who got wrapped up in a plot to rid the fantasy world of Exandria of its gods via a god-eating entity trapped in one of Exandria's moons. Characters from Critical Role's previous campaigns made significant appearances in the campaign, with the cast playing their old characters for limited periods.

Following the finale, Brennan Lee Mulligan will lead another 4-part Exandria Unlimited episode, titled Exandria Unlimited: Divergence. The series will explore the Divergence, a moment when the gods of Exandria removed themselves from the world after a devastating war between pantheons. The cast will also include Matt Mercer, Liam O'Brien, Jasmine Don, Alex Ward, and Celia Rose Gooding. That series will air for four weeks starting on February 13th at 7 PM on Critical Role's various streaming channels.

No plans were announced for a fourth Critical Role campaign. Campaign 3 ended Critical Role's tradition of weekly live episodes, with the show shifting to pre-recorded episodes that aired three times a month. Speculation has grown that Critical Role's cast (which has remained the same for 10 years) would shift, or that the game would abandon Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition in favor of Daggerheart, a fantasy RPG developed by Critical Role's Darrington Press imprint.

 

[Ringtail]

Why it did fine.

Some fans (myself included) have found the campaign to be going in a weird direction. That the handling of the gods doesn't match the tone of the previous campaigns, that the PCs are actually committing villainous deeds or that this ending has been pre-ordained to shake up the world prior to a move to Daggerheart (which has some noticeable differences in lore.)

The last bit is mostly speculation, but regardless a bunch of fans just don't really like this campaign, but I do agree there seem to be plenty of fans who are still enjoying it. I like the cast so I wish them the best.

 

[Henadic Theologian]

Some fans (myself included) have found the campaign to be going in a weird direction. That the handling of the gods doesn't match the tone of the previous campaigns, that the PCs are actually committing villainous deeds or that this ending has been pre-ordained to shake up the world prior to a move to Daggerheart (which has some noticeable differences in lore.)

The last bit is mostly speculation, but regardless a bunch of fans just don't really like this campaign, but I do agree there seem to be plenty of fans who are still enjoying it. I like the cast so I wish them the best.

Their viewership nose dived from what I hear. I also heard they had to have cameos from the Mighty Nein to save things, so Hells Bells aren't even the heroes of their own adventures.

 

[Clint_L]

I'll be honest: I find the Exandria Unlimited episodes kind of tedious...as has been too much of Campaign 3. I still enjoy it as background entertainment to my painting, but the plotting has become glacial. Like, almost all of Campaign 3 is basically a single, incredibly drawn out episode.

The recent Vox Machina and Mighty Nein episodes were so much more fun - nice and compact. Whatever they do next, I hope it goes back to more self-contained story arcs, not 100 part epics.

 

[Clint_L]

I wouldn't get your hopes up that they move to Daggerheart for C4, though I'm sure we'll see some additional content using that system like they did with Candella.

They've already confirmed that they are sticking with D&D. Which seems weird, given that they will be selling a competing fantasy RPG.

 

[Hexmage-EN]

I got behind on the show around episode 30, but the gist I've seen online is that about half or more of Campaign 3 was dedicated to a plot line where the gods could potentially be killed and whether or not the world even needed gods, which seems like it would be interesting for the end of a campaign but instead took up most of it with seemingly little forward motion. I was also seeing a lot of irritation with the Campaign 3 party being largely indifferent to the gods that it was their mission to potentially save while multiple members of Vox Machina had been explicitly aided by the gods and the Mighty Nein had one devout follower of a nature goddess.

I am interested in that the resolution to this plot line seemingly is leaning towards

Spoiler: potential spoilers for Campaign 3 ending

the gods essentially being forced to become mortals and continually reincarnate in mortal bodies or else be destroyed.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

Their viewership nose dived from what I hear. I also heard they had to have cameos from the Mighty Nein to save things, so Hells Bells aren't even the heroes of their own adventures.

No that’s just stuff that was made up by Dramatubers. I saw you repost that stuff and it’s not true.

 

[DarkCrisis]

Never got into season 3. Watched a few of the first episodes but wasn’t feeling the characters.

I think it would be a mistake for them to play just Daggerheart. D&D is the big boy out there.

I would love to see them play Cyberpunk or Shadowrun.

 

[TiQuinn]

I bailed on C3 right around the time they got their butts kicked by Otohan Thull the first time around. I was just not vibing with the characters this time around, and the story (and their decision making) were just really meandering. I was shocked to find out that they were still on the red moon a few weeks ago. It just seemed like interminably long campaign.

 

[kenmarable]

Good lord, an 8.5 hour episode is a huge commitment. I hope it's not all live.

It is pre-recorded but for they will typically play that whole time (with breaks, of course, for food & bio breaks). So 8.5 hours wasn't the planned length, they just played until they were done. So their 7+ hour C2 finale was them playing for over 7 hours.

This one was apparently recorded over two different days, however, only because they mentioned that, I believe, they were filming the day the LA fires broke out and at a break decided it would be best to leave wherever their studio is and later came back after it was safer there/clearer where the danger was/or some such.

 

[TiQuinn]

They've already confirmed that they are sticking with D&D. Which seems weird, given that they will be selling a competing fantasy RPG.

That seems so crazy to me. I was watching last night and listening to Matt Mercer catch himself saying “Genasi” and suddenly correcting himself to “Djinn” kind of underscores the conflict. They’re clearly at odds with the IP.