How animation brought Critical Role’s ‘Legend of Vox Machina’ to life

Within the first minute of Critical Role’s new animated series “The Legend of Vox Machina” a boulder smashes an adventurer to a bloody pulp, a spellcaster is sliced into several pieces, eyeballs fly across the screen and a sword-wielding fighter is electrified into a burnt husk.

“We knew that, especially with that first and that second episode, that we had to do a good job telling the world and our audience exactly what this show was going to be,” said Marisha Ray, creative director of Critical Role and the voice of the druid Keyleth in the series.

The series is based on Critical Role’s first streamed Dungeons & Dragons campaign and follows the adventures of Vox Machina, a debaucherous group of mercenaries.

It is the latest adult animated series to arrive on Amazon’s Prime Video streaming service, fitting alongside the equally violent “Invincible,” raunchy “Fairfax” and dark “Undone.”

“The Legend of Vox Machina” debuted its first three episodes on Friday and will continue to dole out three new episodes each week for the next three weeks. A planned second season release date has yet to be announced.

“We’ve seen so much critical and audience success with our animated slate,” said Melissa Wolfe, head of animation and family programming at Prime Video, in an email to CNBC. “‘Vox’ felt like such a natural fit with the animation slate we are building here … animation offers a unique and unexpected way to tell stories and this is really just the beginning for us at Prime Video.”

For Prime Video, “The Legend of Vox Machina” was a safe bet. With relatively low up-front costs, compared to many of Amazon’s other streaming projects, the series has a passionate built-in audience and will add value to its platform.

Already fans and critics have lauded the show. It currently holds a 100% “fresh” rating on Rotten Tomatoes from 17 official reviews.