In the world of actual-play Dungeons and Dragons campaigns, Critical Role is both the most popular and the most daunting. The series began as a home campaign for a collection of voice actors, all led by Matt Mercer, and slowly amassed a cult following on Twitch, YouTube, and now its own streaming service, Beacon.
But if you don’t have time for the hundreds of four-hour-plus episodes, there’s now an alternative: Prime Video’s animated adaptations, which began with an adaptation of the first campaign, The Legend of Vox Machina, back in 2022. The latest series, The Mighty Nein, is the greatest Critical Role work yet, if only because it plays around with the familiar story to create something even better than what was at the table.
