Critical Role announces subscription service Beacon

Critical Role has officially launched its own subscription service: Beacon. Beacon significantly expands the Critical Role team’s output with recaps, after-shows, behind-the-scenes material, and even brand-new Exandria-set adventures.

While Critical Role’s existing output will remain unchanged, Beacon offers a wide array of new content for Critters to enjoy. The full list of new series and features launching with Beacon are below:

• Critical Role Fireside Chat: A monthly AMA with Critical Role cast and guests, with questions coming from Beacon subscribers.
• Critical Role Cooldown: A direct look at the cast’s after-episode reactions, where viewers get to see how the players are adapting to each new session’s twists and turns.
• Critical Role Abridged: A series cutting down each episode of Critical Role into 60-90 minute edits, alongside new art to spotlight important characters, moments and more.
• Re-Slayer’s Take: A new all-ages audio Actual Play series set in Exandria, featuring George Primavera, Nick Williams, Jasmine Bhullar, Jasper William Cartwright, Caroline Lux, and Jasmine Chiong.
• Critical Role Podcast Audio, released on the same day as show broadcasts.
• Early Access to ticket sales for Critical Role live events.
• 10% discount for online Critical Role shops.
• Invitation to Beacon Member Discord.

Fellow D&D Actual Play series Dimension 20 has risen to greater and greater heights of popularity through streaming service Dropout. And it looks as though the team at Critical Role has taken more than a little inspiration from Dropout in putting Beacon together, in both pricing and content style. Beacon’s subscription service currently costs $5.99 monthly or $59.99 annually.

One of the most exciting aspects of Beacon is undoubtedly Critical Role Abridged. As Actual Play evolves as a medium, series are drifting further and further away from the multihour epic sessions first popularised by Critical Role.

Critical Role Abridged makes the series much easier to engage with for viewers without the time to spend on four hours of a weekly campaign. In addressing this change without compromising on what makes their show unique, Critical Role shows a willingness to adapt that will serve it well into campaign 4 and beyond.