It’s no secret that Critical Role is working on a variety of different creative projects. The founders recently partnered with AdHoc Studios to develop the superhero video game Dispatch, and a video game set in Exandria is currently in development. However, thanks to a light slip of the tongue from one of Critical Role’s founders during an episode of Cooldown, we now know that more will be coming fans’ way sometime in the future.
Cooldown is a show that airs immediately after Critical Role’s weekly campaign episode and focuses on the cast’s reactions to that week’s events. For episode 9 of Campaign 4, most of the Cooldown follow-up was dedicated to discussing a terrifying cliffhanger, but there was a funny bit where Travis Willingham teased that something big is coming, which may involve one of the two big names that recently left Dungeons & Dragons to join Critical Role’s publishing arm, Darrington Press.
Discussing the events of the episode, Dungeon Master Brennan Lee Mulligan joked that the cast would usually tweet at Jeremy Crawford, previously the game director of Dungeons & Dragons, to ask him questions about the rules. “Normally, but they’re probably too busy doing other…” Travis started to say, but he was quickly cut off. There was a whole bit where the words “Critical Role Secrets & Spoiler Detector activated” appeared on screen, followed by a “tape rewind” effect, and then the Cooldown proceeded as if nothing happened.
In June of this year that Crawford, alongside former D&D creative director Chris Perkins, joined Darrington Press, after a much-discussed but amicable exit from Wizards of the Coast, to work on Critical Role’s own tabletop role-playing game, Daggerheart. They are both at work on developing a new setting for Daggerheart, but while news from GenCon 2025 said the setting would be “hellishly terrifying” in its genre choice, not much more information was announced at the time.
A new expansion for the tabletop series has recently been announced, bringing brand-new monsters, campaign suggestions, equipment, and backgrounds to the game, which includes werewolves and vampires, but the Cooldown skit seems to allude to something bigger. However, what if this is not about Daggerheart at all?
We’ve speculated before that the world of Aramán may end up becoming a new setting for Critical Role to sell to its audiences. Could it be that Crawford and/or Perkins will soon make an appearance in Campaign 4? Mulligan could need a break at some point, especially with three different tables to run, and a guest DM would be fun to see. However, that doesn’t necessarily mean that whatever Crawford is working on has to be related to Dungeons & Dragons. Perhaps Travis was simply alluding to some upcoming Daggerheart news, which would be equally exciting for fans.
Ultimately, we’re still in the dark about what to expect from Crawford and Critical Role. Still, given that they went to the length of editing the Cooldown clip to make Travis’ little slip look like a big deal, a big announcement may be coming sooner than later.
