CRITICAL ROLE Branches Out and Acquires MIDST Podcast IP
Critical Role is branching out! The company’s development and production company called Metapigeon recently announced the acquisition of the narrative podcast Midst. If you’re not familiar, Midst is a semi-improvised audio drama that’s a space-western following three protagonists who intersect in unexpected ways. It sounds like fun and the new acquisition is the first time Critical Role has branched out into a new IP which opens up a lot of potential for the company. Metapigeon will work with the production studio Third Person, the founders of Midst, to expand the brand.
Told by three unreliable, playfully omniscient and fully anonymous narrators, the story takes place in the space-western town of Stationary Hill, on the islet of Midst, and follows three protagonists – a crotchety outlaw, a struggling cultist, and a diabolical bastard – as their paths intersect in unexpected ways. Presented as an ongoing fiction podcast series in a turbulent present-tense stream-of-consciousness style, Midst aims to fully engage the audiences’ imaginations in an immersive and highly original setting using a unique storytelling style and distinctive audio. The narrators voice all the action, perform all the characters (sometimes interchangeably), and break the fourth wall with the listener to help contextualize or evoke the mood, scene, and setting.
The small desert islet of Midst spins on the border between the two halves of the cosmos: the dazzling Un and the mysterious Fold. Life is simple for most of the islet’s inhabitants... until an influential civilization known as the Trust takes an interest in Midst and sparks an unexpected chain of events, intertwining the lives of three complicated antiheroes. Also, unrelated to any of that, Midst’s moon is about to fall out of the sky and cause reality to eat itself alive, so that’s not great either. Unsolved murders, cult brainwashing, and supernatural darkness all combine to create a clusterfuck of cosmic proportions.
Talking about the acquisition, Critical Role’s Ben Van Der Fluit said:
As part of our ongoing effort to expand the types of narratives we share and elevate new storytellers, we remain focused on exploring diverse IP in a multitude of mediums. Working with the narrators of Midst has been a dream – we’re such fans of the world they have built, and we look forward to continuing to empower their creative dreams.
Critical Role and Metapigeon will be re-releasing the first two seasons with remastered audio and a new video version of each episode. In addition, season three and future seasons are already in the works and each episode features at least one piece of original art. The founders of Midst shared the following:
In lieu of the trumpet and explosion emojis that would be the truest expression of our feelings, we can say with full sincerity that we are over the moon to have found partners with such phenomenal passion and talent for creative multimedia storytelling. Critical Role and Metapigeon are enabling us to bring Midst to life in ways we never imagined possible, and we can’t wait to share what’s in store with fans both old and new.
The first three episodes of the remastered seasons will be available via Critical Role’s YouTube channel with unique animated artwork starting April 11, 12, and 13. If you prefer the podcast format, you’ll be able to listen via Apple Podcasts, Google Podcasts, and Spotify those same days with new episodes released weekly on Wednesdays at 5AM PT. If you’re a subscriber that pays $2.99 a month or $29.99 a year, you’ll get access to the first five episodes on April 11 and future episodes a whole two weeks in advance via the Midst website. This is in addition to an ad-free experience and bonus content.