In a few weeks, a new animated series from the same people behind “The Legend of Vox Machina” will launch. The most well-known streamers of Dungeons & Dragons, Critical Role, however, want to not only capture their loyal fans but also attract newcomers.
What is this new series about? The new animated series for the second main campaign of Critical Role, “The Mighty Nein”, premieres on November 19, 2025, on Amazon Prime and is already the second series adaptation from the streaming team. In 2022, “The Legend of Vox Machina” was released, showcasing Critical Role’s first campaign and team of heroes. It achieved a full 5-star rating with 1,058 reviews on Amazon Prime and an 8.4/10 rating on IMDb from 50,489 reviews.
Fans are now extremely excited about the adaptation of the second campaign, which has been named the best by many fans and also within the MeinMMO editorial team.
In conversation with two members of Critical Role and executive producers of the series, Travis Willingham (Grog from Vox Machina and Fjord from The Mighty Nein) and Sam Riegel (Scanlan from Vox Machina and Nott from The Mighty Nein), both clarify that they want to reach not only long-time fans with their new series. With The Mighty Nein, they also aim to attract newcomers.
Here you can watch the trailer for The Mighty Nein on Amazon Prime:
The Mighty Nein is even more ambitious than The Legend of Vox Machina
How does Critical Role plan to impress both new people and loyal fans at the same time? The Mighty Nein will use some different approaches than The Legend of Vox Machina, which will provide a completely different experience than the first series.
In conversations with Amazon, Willingham and Riegel explain that The Mighty Nein will generally be much larger than Vox Machina, not only due to a larger world with more lore, politics, and background stories. The new series will feature longer episodes than the approximately 20-minute episodes of Vox Machina, but also longer seasons overall, as there is so much more to tell. Moreover, they will go beyond the events of the streamed campaign.
Riegel explains that in the animated series, you will also see events that were not explicitly shown in the campaign, as they want to delve deeper into the motives and backgrounds of the world and characters.
The reason behind this is described by Willingham as follows:
The main goal was that we wanted to present this in a way that regardless of whether you are a die-hard Mighty Nein fan, have seen all the episodes of Critical Role, or are coming to the show for the first time, established fans and newcomers can relate to each other, and we hope to have something to offer for both.
– Travis Willingham via YouTube
What else can we expect from The Mighty Nein? In addition to more and longer content, the next biggest difference is the nature of the characters. This sounds understandable, as they are entirely new protagonists, but they differ especially on a moral and thematic level from the heroes of Vox Machina.
“They have a lot of inner demons,” says Riegel (on YouTube), “They are more complex characters. They are not just heroes wanting to perform heroic deeds. They have real problems they need to deal with.”
Unlike in The Legend of Vox Machina, you will not meet the heroes as an already established team who win drinking games together in a tavern in the first episode, but as individuals with different backgrounds. According to Willingham, this is meant to provide a deeper insight into what has shaped the protagonists and what motivates them, even before they have come together.
In addition to the well-known voices of the protagonists from Critical Role, the team has also brought in other well-known actors. These include Mark Strong (Kingsman: The Secret Service), Ming-Na Wen (Mulan), Auli’i Cravalho (Moana), country singer and actor Tim McGraw, and Robbie Daymond, who has been a solid part of the group since Bells Hells and definitely since the new fourth campaign of Critical Role.
Last week, the aforementioned new campaign from Critical Role began, and the first episode is already available on YouTube. If you want to know more about the fourth campaign, you can do so here on MeinMMO: Critical Role Campaign 4: Everything about the start, cast, and characters of the next stream for Dungeons & Dragons
