- Critical Role’s cofounders sat down with BI and answered one big question: Are you stepping down?
- Critical Role’s CEO, Travis Willingham, said the answer to that is a hard no.
- But the cofounders do want to bring on “new faces” and ink new partnerships.
Critical Role’s cofounders are answering one big question about their business — and putting some speculation to bed.
The eight-member team has streamed their long-running “Dungeons & Dragons” game for hundreds of episodes. Over the last decade, the California-based crew turned their Twitch hit show into a business venture with multiple arms spanning gaming, Amazon-backed animated series, and publishing.
They’ve sold out stadiums for their live shows, and are embarking on a multi-city tour between April and October: Chicago, Fishers (just outside Indianapolis), Sydney, Melbourne, and New York.
BI asked four of the company’s cofounders — who are now mostly in their 40s — about fan speculation that they’d step down from broadcasting to focus on behind-the-scenes work.
The answer was a hard no.
“We’ve had 10 amazing years — and it should be clear and known and declared that we’re not going anywhere. We’ve got tons more to do,” Travis Willingham, Critical Role’s CEO, said.
Not done with telling stories
Liam O’Brien, one of CR’s cofounders and the face of its literary and publishing business, told BI he already has character ideas for their next streaming project.
The crew also isn’t done with the world of Exandria — the sprawling gameplay sandbox that Matthew Mercer, CR’s chief creative officer, created over a decade ago.
Willingham says he wants to explore the Shattered Teeth, a string of mysterious islands in Exandria, and see what the game world looks like under the sea.
O’Brien, meanwhile, wants to take a big leap forward in time.
“Someday in some manner, in some medium, I want to visit Exandria in a science fiction far future,” he said.
Ray also told BI that she’s figuring out what the next cofounder-led project to hit their streaming platform, Beacon, will look like.
Critical Role
“Between Campaign Two and Campaign Three, we built a new set,” Ray told BI. “We’re talking about merch, and we’re talking new ways that we can continue to elevate our content and how we tell this story. We are very much in the thick of that right now as we’re building everything out.”
New faces, new partnerships
CR is also interested in having new talent on board.
“We’re very dedicated to introducing these new faces to our audience. And that’s not going to stop anytime soon,” Ray said.
“I don’t think we could hang up the towel even if we wanted to. I think we’re all addicted, so you’re not going to see any of the founders go anywhere,” she said.
The CR team also wants to bring new crews and their projects on board.
There’s already precedent for this. CR expanded its reach in the podcasting business by acquiring shows like “Midst” and “Tales from the Stinky Dragon.” The latter streamed at the Texas-based Rooster Teeth Productions until that company shut down in 2024.
Willingham told BI that the crew wants to find creatives who make “cool and nerdy” things — and he hopes CR’s streaming platform, Beacon, can help give such people a platform.
“After 10 years, one of the most exciting things is the opportunity to give storytellers a new spotlight,” Willingham said.
