With Legend Of Vox Machina Streaming Free Before Season 3, Critical Role Stars Talk ‘Really Embracing’ Changes From The Original Story

article by Laura Hurley

The days are counting down until The Legend of Vox Machina returns for Season 3 in the 2024 TV schedule on Prime Video, just over a year and a half after the second season ended a cliffhanger that was quite literally very hot. The new batch of episodes will continue adapting the story from Critical Role’s first live-streamed Dungeons & Dragons campaign. The first two seasons are now available streaming free without an Amazon Prime Video subscription, and the stars opened up to CinemaBlend about making changes for the animated series.

For the final week ahead of The Legend of Vox Machina’s third season premiere on October 3, Prime Video has made all 24 episodes from the first two seasons available streaming on the official YouTube account. From Vox Machina taking down their first dragon to the Season 2 cliffhanger, you can relive the highs and lows for a refresher.

As for how to prepare for what Season 3 has in store beyond the trailer, it turns out that Critical Role fans who might think they’re completely spoiled on the next chapters in Vox Machina’s story are in for some surprises. When I spoke with the cast – all of whom are also executive producers of the series – ahead of the premiere, they weighed in on the perks of building suspense for viewers by making changes beyond the original campaign.

Matt Mercer, the Critical Role Dungeon Master and voice of many Legend of Vox Machina characters, shared:

It’s fun. As part of the adaptation process, really embracing the fact that the original campaign will always be there, we want to carry the true spirit of the original campaign through the series, but also allowing moments where we can show parts of the story that we didn’t have the chance to show from the players’ perspective in the original campaign, which is a surprise for everybody in a lot of cool ways.

The first two seasons already delivered some examples of scenes that don’t actually include any of the original player characters, and it’s safe to say that will continue into the third season. Mercer went on:

And with hindsight, [we can] go back and just change a few things here and there to better serve the overall narrative in ways that will definitely surprise original watchers of the campaign. Any of those changes are all done with consensus and excitement, and it’s with the intent of serving the story more than anything, and then the benefit of also knowing that it’s really going to knock a few people off their expectations.

Travis Willingham, who voices Grog and has co-written several episodes with fellow cast member Sam Riegel, shared his own take on the “task” of subverting expectations with the Prime Video adaptation of the original story. In a group interview with several of his castmates/EPs chiming in, he shared with CinemaBlend:

For us, so much of our audience has an expectation of what’s coming, and it’s our task to upset those expectations, and sort of redirect how the story is told, so that people may know what’s coming, but the effects of it, we want it to last and have people wonder what’s coming from episode to episode. So if we can do that, we feel like we’ve been effective in our storytelling this time through.

As for the question of whether they enjoy creating suspense even for campaign viewers who know the original story, Ashley Johnson – who voices Pike and appeared in The Last of Us’ live-action TV show in a pretty perfect role after voicing Ellie for the video games – immediately responded with “Absolutely.” Marisha Ray, the voice of Keyleth, shared her take:

There’s a story, even if you know where it is going, [that] you can still have that element of surprise. I think that’s why we as humans love stories and can watch movies or we can watch series several times over and still get that emotional response. That’s on full display, especially here in Season 3.

Based on the trailer and opening title sequence, the idea of Keyleth outliving the rest of Vox Machina seems to have a part to play in Season 3. The footage also gives away that the Keyleth/Vax romance seems to be back on track after some setbacks in Season 2. Liam O’Brien, the voice of Vax’ildan, shared his thoughts on changes from table to screen:

I also see it just as an extension of what we do at the table for the eight of us. We all like shocking each other, surprising each other with moments at the table, and now we’re just doing it for many more people. It’s just all storytelling.

In some parting thoughts on the subject of creating suspense for fans of the original Critical Role campaign as well as show-only viewers, Travis Willingham shared:

We’re fans of these type of stories, and so we’ve seen it when it’s done well and when it’s not done so well. For us, we have the advantage of knowing exactly who this story is for. We made it for ourselves, and we’ve made it for our fans and the people that have been here with us along the way. We think we have it dialed in pretty tight.

Also starring Laura Bailey as Vex’ahlia, Taliesin Jaffe as Percy, and Sam Riegel as Scanlan, Season 3 of the Legend of Vox Machina is going to see the group heading to hell and back as part of the mission to take down the Chroma Conclave of dragons and save Exandria.

That is, at least part of the group will definitely be going to hell, as Percy and Vex are conspicuously absent from the hell-set scenes in the trailer, although Matt Mercer gets a cameo.

The Legend of Vox Machina Season 3 will consist of twelve episodes. Like the first two seasons, Prime Video will release the episodes in batches of three per week, starting with the first three on Thursday, October 3. In the meantime, you can always revisit Seasons 1 and 2 streaming free via YouTube or via a Prime Video subscription. You can also check out CinemaBlend’s picks for the best animated TV shows for more viewing options.