Steve Failows for Critical Role
- I went to CR's live shows in Sydney and Melbourne and caught up with some of the cofounders.The excitement at the shows was fever-pitch, and I'd only seen its like at K-Pop concerts.Seeing it firsthand made me understand just how big the business had become.
When I arrived at the Critical Role merchandise line in Sydney six hours before the show, I turned to my friend and said, "Oh, no."
Over breakfast, I had proclaimed with entirely baseless confidence that the lines "wouldn't be anything like queueing for BTS merch." We'd traveled from Singapore for two stops of the Australian leg of CR's live shows, only to find a snaking queue outside the ICC Theater, a venue that seats some 9,000 people.
Despite covering CR for years, I'd underestimated the pull this crew of eight people would have on the other side of the world. We waited in line for over five hours, lining up with fans clamoring to buy shirts and hoodies with the tour dates on them.
For the uninitiated, CR is a nerdworld business that has sold out stadium shows in and beyond the US. Thousands of people have paid hundreds of dollars to watch them play "Dungeons & Dragons" — and now, their new game, "Daggerheart" — for close to five hours.
Since their 2023 show at London's Wembley Arena, CR's touring machine has picked up speed, with a multi-city 2025 tour that'll end at Radio City Music Hall on October 7. The eight CR cofounders are also in their 10th year running their business, which spans animation, gaming, and book publishing.
K-Pop concert-style excitement
Before the show, I tried to soak in the full CR live experience. I mingled with fans decked out in full cosplay, some covered in purple body paint to turn them the closest shade of lilac to their favorite elf boy.
Some attendees I spoke to said they'd come from Japan, Singapore, South Korea, and New Zealand. A fan based in South Korea estimated they'd spent close to $6,000 to see CR live. Another told me they'd spent close to $10,000 to fly in from Los Angeles, bent on following CR to every tour stop.
Much like the K-pop concerts I was used to attending, people exchanged trinkets and traded friendship bracelets, Taylor Swift-concert style.
Natasha Langdon, 25, organized a fan meet event in Sydney.
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"Last year, when I flew to LA to see Critical Role live, I went to a similar type of fan meetup, and it was one of the most joyous occasions of my life. I was on the other side of the world, and yet there was an immediate sense of homecoming and welcome," Langdon told me.
The CR fever wasn't limited to the show nights. Weeklong events catering to the fandom mushroomed up at venues across both cities. One of them was "Realms Unleashed," a series of events organized by Fortress, a gaming bar and entertainment venue with outlets in Sydney and Melbourne.
Nearly 18,000 people attended in the two cities, a Fortress rep told me.
The crew's touring business is revving up
I caught up with three of the crew's cofounders backstage at Melbourne's Rod Laver Arena, the Australian leg's second stop — a venue that seats over 10,000 people.
Matthew Mercer, the team's chief creative officer and their longtime game master, told me it was still "terrifying" to step out onstage in front of thousands of people. CR records most of its content out of its LA studio, so Mercer often just has an immediate audience of seven as opposed to thousands of screaming fans.
Hanna Armour for Critical Role
"I go in with the perpetual cloud of, 'I hope everyone likes this, because they paid to be here,'" Mercer said.
The crew's 2026 tour will take it to Atlanta and Texas. It also includes a whopper of an event at London's O2 arena in October — which rivals Madison Square Garden in size.
The CR business is just getting bigger
CR is also expanding other arms of its business.
On the game publishing front, the company recently hired Chris Perkins and Jeremy Crawford. The two are major names in game design one might liken to the Steve Jobs and Jony Ive of "D&D." They left their roles at CR's Hasbro-owned competitor, Wizards of the Coast, in April.
Perkins and Crawford now work for Darrington Press, the team's official publishing arm. And they're now pitching ideas on everything from improvements to "Daggerheart" — a sold-out game CR's been developing for years — to new products, Willingham said.
Hanna Armour for Critical Role
"We're just going to let the kids kind of play in the mad scientist lab for a little bit," Willingham added.
On other fronts, CR's Amazon-backed animation, "The Mighty Nein," is set to drop soon, pending a big announcement on Thursday out of San Diego Comic Con.
And now there's more information about the long-awaited Critical Role video game. The team is working with AdHoc Studio, an indie outfit out of LA, to develop its original product set in Mercer's world of Exandria.
Still, CR started on a stream, and creative director Marisha Ray says the cofounders aren't letting up on that, especially since they have their own streaming platform, Beacon.
"We're very lucky in the way that Beacon has afforded us a lot of flexibility to experiment and stretch our legs," Ray said.
She says the team is hoping to do more shorter-run series with the "Daggerheart" gaming system, and experiment with some genre-bending content.
"Honestly, the only thing that's limiting us right now is our Google calendars," she added.
The accidental empire
Sitting backstage at an arena, waiting for thousands of excited fans to pour in and fill the seats, I couldn't help but ask the three cofounders a question I first asked Mercer and Willingham years ago: Does it feel like you're in the empire business?
Critical Role
Mercer said the word "empire" was a term other people used to describe CR.
"I don't think we intended to build an empire, but I would be remiss if we don't occasionally stop, take a breath, look behind us, and go, 'Oh, shit. I think we accidentally built an empire,'" said Mercer.
"I feel like we've made a fun house more than an empire," Willingham said. "But we have made this tiny home game into a multi-headed production company."
"And that's a wonderful thing. But it also keeps us up at night. It definitely makes us burn the candle at both ends," Willingham added.
