On June 01, 2025,Critical Roleannounced its collaboration with AdHoc Studio, the same developer behind the soon-to-be-released Dispatch, a self-described superhero workplace comedy game with a choice-based narrative. Together, AdHoc and Critical Role will develop an upcoming video game set in the world of Exandria. Critical Role is, of course, a company whose very foundation is based on narrative-based games and storytelling, as is AdHoc. In many ways, the partnership feels like a no-brainer.
Right now, at least, we don’t really know much about what a Critical Role video game might look like. However, as we now know who will be developing it and the type of work that AdHoc is producing, a slightly clearer picture has begun to emerge about what it might entail, and that picture might just include a choice-based adventure.
Baldur’s Gate Or Exandria?
Dispatch, like many similar games that have come before it, seems to be placing a huge emphasis on choice-based gameplay, at leastbased on the limited footage that’s been shown. However, narrative-driven games like Dispatch can feel quite narrow in scope at times, and AdHoc itself is, of course, an indie developer with a different set of resources than larger studios that produce large, triple-A games. Between these characteristics, it seems more likely that the Critical Role video game may be a bit more hyper-focused than some might’ve hoped.
As long as Critical Role has hinted at the prospect of a video game, dedicated fans (myself included) have wondered about what an expansive, open-world Exandrian game, reminiscent of something like Baldur’s Gate 3, might look like. But now, given this partnership with AdHoc, it seems more likely that we’ll get something entirely different. But that limited scope could actually be for the best.
Too Big To Fail
Exandria is a huge world. It has some of the richest, mostin-depth lore in recent memory. No matter how big a game the team at Critical Role might’ve ended up making, it seems highly unlikely that any scale would’ve been appropriate for the world of Exandria. Open-world games are a tricky beast in that regard. The game has to feel big, but it can’t feel infinite. Otherwise, it risks becoming overwhelming. And yet, anything less than Assassin’s Creed-esque expansiveness might’ve felt too small for a world as rich as Exandria.
When it comes to the partnership with AdHoc, it seems likely that Critical Role is aware of this conundrum. Given its investment in emotionally resonant storytelling and narrative-based gameplay, the collaboration with a smaller studio like AdHoc really feels like a match made in heaven. AdHoc, which has producers who’ve worked on narrative-driven classics like The Wolf Among Us and other Telltale games, seems to have a creative spirit that’s well-tailored to the artistic sensibility of Critical Role.
Loading Exandria
A heavily stat-based, dense-with-mechanics video game would never feel right for the world of Critical Role. Critical Role, and by extension, Exandria, is about stories and characters, first and foremost. So, with that in mind, and with AdHoc’s collaboration officially announced, it begs the question: What will a Critical Role video game look like under AdHoc?
My best guess would be that we’ll see a game that’s heavily choice-based, with a decent amount of point-and-click adventure tropes and dialogue trees. However, Dispatch is also not without some complex mechanics and stats. It wouldn’t surprise me at all if we saw the inclusion of tabletop mechanics that are reminiscentof the ones in Daggerheart, Critical Role’s TTRPG inspired in part by Dungeons & Dragons. And, to top it all off, my mind personally goes to a game like Date Everything! (which already features the majority of the Critical Role cast in voiceover roles). The colorful characters of AdHoc games and Exandria feel perfect for dating sim mechanics, as does DND on the whole. Why not pepper in some dating sim elements into a Critical Role game?
All in all, while the announced partnership with AdHoc means that, perhaps, Critical Role’s first game might not be anything like the past few years of Dungeons & Dragons video games, this ultimately feels like a good thing. Critical Role has always taken preexisting ideas about gaming and narrative and turned them on their heads. That’s been their approach to Dungeons & Dragons and tabletop for the past decade–why should their approach to a video game be any different? For now, it seems like the team’s conceit will be highly singular, and that bodes well for the future of Critical Role games as a whole.
