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Matt Mercer continually underestimates Critical Role - and that's how he likes it

Even with the wild success of The Legend of Vox Machina Kickstarter "burned into his soul," Matt Mercer finds himself surprised at how popular Critical Role proves to be.

PAX East 2026 Vox Machina Critical Role — Image credit: Prime Video / Popverse

News by Trent Cannon, Senior Contributing writer

Published on Thu Apr 02 2026

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Critical Role has grown far beyond the initial tabletop game that it once was. It is now a hit TV show and successful production company, with Daggerheart far exceeding their initial sales goals, and will soon be made into a video game by Dispatch developers AdHoc Studio. But even though Critical Role constantly manages to excel at pretty much everything it touches, Matt Mercer says they have a habit of underestimating themselves. But he thinks that is for the best.

While speaking to the long-time Critical Role GM at PAX East 2026, we talked about the remarkable year that Daggerheart, Darrington Press’ new tabletop system, had in 2025. “Our three-year plan, we hit in under six months,” he commented, agreeing that it was a very interesting first year for the system, but that was something the company had some experience with. “Very much so. In a lot of ways, more than we ever anticipated. And I guess we have a history of underestimating ourselves. But, to that point, I prefer to always underestimate than overestimate.”

Fans of Critical Role will recall when their Kickstarter for The Legend of Vox Machina animated series blew past their initial goals, getting over $4 million in pledges in the first 24 hours and blowing past every stretch goal the cast had set. This was something that Mercer admitted was “burned into his soul” during our conversation, but it shouldn’t come as a surprise. Critical Role fans are always ready and willing to shatter expectations when it comes to supporting their favorite nerdy-ass voice actors playing Dungeons & Dragons.

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