Critical Role Announces Brennan Lee Mulligan As Campaign 4 GM, Release Date In October

Update: In addition to the news from the official press release more was available as part of the Critical Role Direct.

The first piece of confirmation is that while Matthew Mercer will be stepping back from the GM chair for Critical Role Campaign 4 he will still be at the table, getting to be a full time player. While no other players were explicitly confirmed for the Campaign 4 table Matt did state that he would be playing “alongside [his] favorite familiar faces and a number of newer ones that I cannot wait to reveal to you.”

It was also revealed via a Variety interview that Brennan Lee Mulligan also just struck a new three-year development deal with Dropout so don’t expect him to be leaving Dimension20 and the dome anytime soon.

In his interview with Variety, Mulligan teases that there is an announcement of what game system will be in use “scheduled and on route” but stayed tight-lipped on anything further.

The Critical Role Direct has now released, and with it the confirmation of a release date for Critical Role Campaign 4, but also the confirmation about some details of who will be the GM for this game, and where it will take place… or at least where it WON’T take place.

Critical Role Campaign 4 Release Date

Fans of Critical Role will be able to tune in and watch the first episode of Critical Role Campaign 4 when it returns to Thursday nights on October 2nd, 2025. At the time of posting, we’re exactly two months away from this premiere.

The much more unexpected news of this reveal is that Matthew Mercer, Dungeon Master for the previous three campaigns and CCO of Critical Role Productions, will not be the Game Master for Critical Role campaign 4. Instead, Brennan Lee Mulligan will be taking up the role of Game Master.

“We’ve been enormous fans of Brennan’s for many years now, and when it came to giving both Matthew Mercer and the world of Exandria a bit of a breather, Brennan felt like the perfect storyteller to take our community somewhere entirely new.” – Travis Willingham, CEO, co-founder, and cast member of Critical Role

The statement from Willingham also reveals that Campaign 4 will not take place in Exandria, the world of Mercer’s creation that has been the home for each main Campaign and various spin-offs like EXU: Downfall. This is further backed up by Marisha Ray, Creative Director and Co-Founder of Critical Role, stating, “Everything about Campaign 4 is fresh; new world, new tone, new possibilities. We can’t wait for the fans to experience what we’ve been building.”

Brennan Lee Mulligan is in no way a stranger to the Critical Role table, being not only a player but also the Dungeon Master in a number of spin-off settings. Mulligan had the following to say on the announcement and his taking on the GM role for Critical Role Campaign 4.

“What a gift, a privilege and an honor to be invited behind the screen of Critical Role for this next epic adventure. Every collaboration we have had together has brought nothing but sheer joy, and Campaign 4 will be no exception. I’m finally playing *almost* as much tabletop as I’d like to!”

Will Critical Role Campaign 4 be Dungeons & Dragons or Daggerheart?

While this announcement answered a few questions that fans had been clamouring to find out about the future of Critical Role, it does certainly leave a number still unanswered.

Who will be playing in Campaign 4? Will Matt have a chance to play at the table or focus on continued world-building? Is Robbie Daymond going to be back at the table? Will Campaign 4 be as long as a standard multi-year Campaign of Critical Role?

Perhaps the biggest question left unanswered is whether Critical Role Campaign 4 will use Dungeons & Dragons as the previous campaigns have, or if they’ll move on to Daggerheart, Critical Role and Darrington Press’ newly released TTRPG. It is curious that the press release and announcement only use generic terms such as ‘Game Master’ and ‘TTRPGs’.

With the announcement of a second season of Age of Umbra, a Daggerheart campaign in a Grimdark setting that Mercer designed, it may be that Mercer is continuing to work on Daggerheart adventures while Mulligan spins stories in a world built for Dungeons & Dragons.

TechRaptor reached out to Critical Role for any potential answers but were advised that at this time the Campaign 4 release date and that Brennan Lee Mulligan would be helming the table were all they were ready to talk about. There are two months to go until the release of Critical Role Campaign 4 so be on the lookout for announcements related to the setting, cast, and more.