Critical Role campaign four

The fourth campaign of the Dungeons & Dragons web series Critical Role is set to premiere on October 2, 2025. Brennan Lee Mulligan is taking over Game Master duties from Matthew Mercer,^[1] with Mercer switching to a player-role.^[2][3] The campaign will be set in a new world, Aramán, rather than the Exandria setting used in the previous three campaigns.^[1] With the cast expanding to 13 players after the fourth episode, Mulligan will initially run the campaign across three player groups.^[4][5][6]

Critical Role campaign four
Starring	Brennan Lee Mulligan Laura Bailey Taliesin Jaffe Ashley Johnson Matthew Mercer Liam O'Brien Marisha Ray Sam Riegel Travis Willingham Luis Carazo Robbie Daymond Aabria Iyengar Whitney Moore Alexander Ward
Release
Original network	Beacon Twitch YouTube
Original release	October 2, 2025 (2025-10-02)
Season chronology
List of episodes

Cast

See also: List of Critical Role cast members

Main cast

• Brennan Lee Mulligan as:
  • The Game Master^[1]
• Matthew Mercer^[3]
• Laura Bailey^[6]
• Taliesin Jaffe^[6]
• Ashley Johnson^[6]
• Liam O'Brien^[6]
• Marisha Ray^[6]
• Sam Riegel^[6]
• Travis Willingham^[6]
• Luis Carazo^[6]
• Robbie Daymond^[6]
• Aabria Iyengar^[6]
• Whitney Moore^[6]
• Alex Ward^[6]

Production and format

Casting

The new Game Master Brennan Lee Mulligan

Matthew Mercer at the 2023 Critical Role live show in Wembley Arena

The casting of Brennan Lee Mulligan as the Game Master for campaign four was announced during the August 2, 2025 live show in Indiana and a press release from the studio, Critical Role Productions. Matthew Mercer was the Dungeon Master for the first three campaigns;^[7][8][9] however, for the fourth campaign, Mercer will appear in a player-role.^[2][3][10] Rolling Stone stated that "the inclusion of Mulligan is huge, but not entirely surprising" given Mulligan's background as "a well-established Game Master" who created the "titanic success" Dimension 20 along with previous comments made by Mercer on eventually shifting "into a 'Professor X' role as a mentor to the next generation of storytellers rather than remaining the face of the brand in perpetuity".^[7]

Game system

Critical Role is an actual play which uses a tabletop role-playing game system.^[11][12] Cheryl Teh of Business Insider noted that the initial announcement of the fourth campaign did not reveal which game system the campaign will use and further highlighted that Critical Role's tabletop game imprint Darrington Press had just released their own tabletop role-playing game, Daggerheart.^[11] Then in a August 21, 2025 press release, Critical Role released the cast and campaign structure for the fourth campaign which included the announcement that the campaign would be using the 2024 revision to the 5th Edition ruleset of Dungeons & Dragons.^[6] The campaign will also feature homebrew design contributions by Jeremy Crawford and Chris Perkins.^[4]

After the opening four sessions of the campaign, Mulligan will split the players into three initial groups: the Soldiers, the Seekers, and the Schemers.^[6][4][13] The campaign will then continue in a West Marches-style structure, where the actions of one group of players can impact on the shared narrative—potentially having implications for the other groups.^[4][5]

Broadcast

The fourth campaign is scheduled to premiere on October 2, 2025.^[1] It will broadcast on Critical Role's on Twitch and YouTube channels as well as on the studio's streaming service Beacon. The public VOD will be available the Monday after each episode "and podcast episodes will drop in two parts: the first one the week after the premiere, and the second on the following Tuesday".^[1]

Setting

The fourth campaign steps away from Mercer's Exandria – the world setting used in the first three campaigns and the Exandria Unlimited anthology web series.^[1] In August 2025, the name of the new world was teased through an augmented reality game (ARG).^[14] Aramán was confirmed as the name of the new setting on August 21.^[4]

Episodes

See also: List of Critical Role episodes

2025

List of episodes in 2025

Episode	Title	Original release date [1]	Notes
1	TBA	October 2, 2025 (2025-10-02)	–

Reception

Pre-release

On the announcement of the new campaign with a new game master, Kenneth Shepard of Kotaku highlighted that "Mulligan was broadly welcomed with open arms, but many Critical Role fans noted they were sad to see Mercer step down from the GM role, even if he will be a part of the campaign as a player".^[15] Dais Johnston of Inverse noted that after a decade and with additional "projects in development", it was understandable that the Critical Role cast might "want to shake things up" or reduce their involvement, though doing so altered a "formula" that had repeatedly proven successful.^[16] Aimee Hart of Polygon highlighted Mercer's previous "passing the torch" comments and noted that "stepping back to let new people into the limelight always comes with its fair share of risks, particularly for a company like Critical Role, whose fame, while it cannot be pinpointed to a single thing, was certainly helped by the electric chemistry these friends have with one another".^[17] She noted that the original cast has "remained a focal selling point for viewers", even when the show has included guests, due to their non-manufactured "relatability".^[17] However, Hart also felt it was "becoming clear" that Critical Role was more of a business than a "web series between friends" at this point and that "Critical Role has long outgrown its indie-like roots, especially with its fingers in pies like Amazon and AdHoc Studios. The only difference is that as time goes on, it's become impossible to ignore that Critical Role will, one day, outgrow its creators too".^[17]

Shepard also highlighted the additional surprise of a new setting for the campaign – "while diehards are mourning a fantasy setting they've been invested in for a decade along with Mercer's shift out of the GM's chair, this likely will make Campaign IV a better entry point for newcomers, as they won't have to catch up on years of lore to jump in and watch".^[15] Johnston similarly remarked that the campaign four changes "could be the shot in the arm the franchise needs to attract new fans daunted by the sheer quantity of episodes to catch up with, or it could mean failing to recapture the magic that happened on Twitch in 2015".^[16] Following the cast announcement, Jack Filsinger of TheGamer noted that Critical Role's Campaign 3 "already loosely dipped its toe into the idea of running concurrent tables after the Apogee Solstice arc was introduced, to much success".^[18] Filsinger praised the choice of a West Marches-style structure, commenting that it "not only meets the utilitarian needs of a franchise this big" but also "matches styles of fantasy storytelling that audiences are most used to".^[18] Francesco Cacciatore of Polygon highlighted how players typically discover a setting in a West Marches-style game, commenting that both the Critical Role players and their audience should uncover the setting of Aramàn together as the world itself will "grow and take shape" due to player "discoveries and their choices will create that kind of magical storytelling that Critical Role fans crave".^[5] He noted that with a West Marches-style, the "actions and discoveries" of the three groups "should have an impact on the other tables, creating the feeling of a world that is changing in real time".^[5]