Rockbeasts Confirms Critical Role Partnership for PS5 Launch

01Critical Role Signs On as Rockbeasts' Publishing Partner

Polish developer Lichthund confirmed on October 8 that Critical Role has joined Rockbeasts as a creative and publishing partner, more than a year after the rock-and-roll management RPG was first unveiled. The news came straight from Lichthund's own PlayStation Blog post, which also locked in a release window for the first time in months.

Lichthund had kept Rockbeasts largely quiet since its last gameplay showcase, and the studio frames the Critical Role deal as the reason the project can finally move again. Critical Role is credited on both the creative and publishing side this time, a bigger role than a typical licensing cameo.

02What Rockbeasts Actually Is

Rockbeasts casts you as a band manager rather than a musician, steering a struggling act through an alternate 90s America where grunge, record labels, and MTV-era excess collide. According to its Steam store page, you'll negotiate with predatory labels, repair gear between shows, book rehearsal space on a tight budget, and take the stage yourself for rhythm-based concert sequences. The story is written by Jakub Szamałek, the principal writer on The Witcher 3 and Cyberpunk 2077 and main writer on The Blood of Dawnwalker.

It's a comedy-drama built around a single, recurring tension: fight for creative freedom or become an industry sellout. Steam's listing describes a management loop where fragile band egos, broken gear, and thin finances can sink a tour just as easily as a bad gig, with your choices in each of those moments shaping how the story plays out rather than just your stats.

03Matthew Mercer and Sam Riegel Join the Cast

The headline addition is voice talent. Lichthund says Critical Role's Matthew Mercer and Sam Riegel are officially joining the Rockbeasts cast to play characters in the game, adding to a roster that already included castmate Liam O'Brien and rock legend Iggy Pop, who voices a character literally named Iggy Pup. Exactly which roles Mercer and Riegel are playing has not been detailed yet — Lichthund's post confirms they're in, not who they're voicing.

04Why Critical Role's Backing Is a Big Deal

Critical Role has spent the past few years moving from a livestreamed Dungeons & Dragons show into a production company with its own animated series, comics, and board games, and Rockbeasts is a step further into working directly with an outside studio as a publishing partner rather than just licensing its brand or cast to someone else's project. For a mid-sized studio like Lichthund, that kind of backing can mean more marketing reach and a louder launch than a story-driven management RPG would otherwise get on its own, on top of the built-in audience that already follows Mercer, Riegel, and O'Brien's other work.

05When You'll Be Able to Play It

Rockbeasts launches on PS5 in January 2027, according to Lichthund's announcement — the first firm window the game has had since slipping past its originally planned 2025 release. A PC version is confirmed through the game's Steam listing, where Lichthund and Critical Role are both named as publishers and a free demo is already available to download. The PlayStation Store listing is live for wishlisting now, as is the game's own official site.

06The Rest of the Creative Team

Lichthund's creative director and co-CEO Bartosz Pieczonka has been the public face of Rockbeasts throughout its development, and he frames the Critical Role partnership as a chance to finish the game the studio originally set out to make rather than a safer, more marketable version of it. Seventeen original full-length tracks are built around the game's 90s alternative-rock setting, and Lichthund describes the art direction as aiming for the hand-drawn look of mature animated shows rather than a realistic recreation of the era.

“It's built around a theme, a very specific fantasy that comes straight from our own experiences.”Bartosz Pieczonka, Creative Director & Co-CEO, Lichthund

07What's Still Unconfirmed

Earlier coverage of Rockbeasts, back when Team17 was attached as publisher, pointed to Xbox Series X|S and Nintendo Switch versions alongside PS5 and PC. Lichthund's own publishing-partner announcement names only PS5 and PC (via Steam), and Team17 no longer appears as a publisher on the game's store page, so treat any other platform as unconfirmed until Lichthund or Critical Role say otherwise. The exact January 2027 release day, the size of Mercer's and Riegel's roles, and whether more cast reveals are coming also remain open questions, and neither company has posted about the partnership on social media yet at the time of writing.

What is confirmed is that the Steam demo already live under the ROCKBEASTS Demo listing predates this announcement, so it won't reflect any content tied to the new cast additions. If you want a feel for the moment-to-moment management and rhythm-performance loop before January, that demo — not any trailer — is currently the most accurate hands-on preview available.