'The Legend of Vox Machina' Is Almost Here — Everything We Know

Of all the major new television series, some might be shocked that a Prime Video adult cartoon depicting a Dungeons and Dragons quest is one of the most popular. But Critical Role fans who have been following The Legend of Vox Machina project since day one aren’t as surprised. However, they do want to know when Season 2 of the revolutionary series will come out.

The Legend of Vox Machina began as a fundraising effort among the Critical Role team and its fans — which now includes their 10 million Twitch followers. Because of this, the future of the series and its success has always been a big question mark. Luckily, the first season was able to bring in a wide enough audience to justify a Season 2. So now we're on the hunt to know anything and everything about the upcoming season, from its plot to its cast and premiere date.

While we have no idea how far into Vox Machina’s journey the animated series goes, we do know that there will be a second season. Basically, after the initial fundraising campaign for The Legend of Vox Machina broke Kickstarter’s record for the most-funded film or television project of all time, production companies started gaining interest in the series. Amazon jumped quickly at the prospect of a show with a built-in audience to bring in more subscribers.

The initial Kickstarter campaign had a goal of $750,000 for a 22-minute animated special. But within an hour, the Critical Role team had already surpassed its goal, and they ultimately raised $11.39 million from 88,887 backers.

The team initially planned to create 10 episodes, but then Amazon Prime decided to buy the exclusive streaming rights of the series and ordered an additional 14 episodes in the process.

This meant that right off the bat, The Legend of Vox Machina was destined for two seasons of greatness (and could be destined for even more). In a joint statement, Critical Role’s Sam Riegel (the voice of Scanlan) and Travis Wallingham (the voice of Grog) shared:

“We were absolutely floored by the level of enthusiasm we received on the Kickstarter campaign, and now we can deliver exactly what the fans wanted, and more. Teaming with Prime Video to deliver the series to fans across the globe is exciting and surreal — and we’re psyched to be able to tell even more stories with not just one, but two 12-episode seasons!”

Now, it's finally on its way to our screens on Jan. 20, 2023. Like the previous season, three episodes will release each week for four weeks, with 12 total episodes in the season.

The first season of The Legend of Vox Machina was all about defeating the Briarwoods, which is one of Critical Role’s three villain arcs within its first campaign. Season 2 will focus on Vox Machina’s next villain arc with the Chroma Conclave. And then we’ll have to cross our fingers for a Season 3 that finishes out the campaign with the Vecna arc.

The official Season 2 tagline is, "The Chroma Conclave Strikes! The dragon's evil spreads its shadow across all of Tal'Dorei — can Vox Machina stop them before it engulfs the world?!?" We're going to hope for the best, and if they do defeat the Chroma Conclave, all bets are that we'll get a Season 3, since Vox Machina's story is far from over.

Because The Legend of Vox Machina is such a passion project, many of its stars are also its creators. They've been with their characters since day one in March 2015 as a campaign for their friend's birthday. Now, eight years later, they're behind a hit Amazon series. This means that our main cast is of course returning:

• Laura Bailey as Vex'ahlia, a half-elf twin
• Liam O'Brien as Vax'ildan, the other half-elf twin
• Marisha Ray as Keyleth, a half-elf druid
• Ashley Johnson as Pike Trickfoot, a gnome cleric
• Travis Willingham as Grog, the barbarian
• Taliesin Jaffe as Percival "Percy" de Rolo, a human gunslinger
• Sam Riegel as Scanlan Shorthalt, the gnome bard

Of course, Matthew Mercer will definitely come back in some capacity, although because he voiced Sylas Briarwood in the previous season, we're not sure which main character he'll play in Season 2. And we can get excited for some new guest voices in addition to returnees Gina Torres as Keeper Yennen, Stephanie Beatriz as Lady Kima of Vord, and Esme Creed-Miles as Cassandra de Rolo. Joining the cast are Cree Summer, Troy Baker, Lance Reddick, and Henry Winkler, among others.

Season 2 of The Legend of Vox Machina premieres on Prime Video on Jan. 20.