Critical Role: Why Orion Acaba Left the Show (2024)

Critical Role, a long-running Dungeons & Dragons web series, is a gem on the Internet, with loyal fans eagerly awaiting weekly updates to the group's running campaigns. While several guest appearances have occurred throughout Critical Role, the main cast has largely remained the same over the years that the show has been going on, with one glaring exception. Orion Acaba, who played Tiberius Stormwind, departed from the show before finishing out the first campaign, while they were still a part of Geek & Sundry.

With its first campaign beginning nine years ago, Critical Role introduced its viewers to a cast of nine party members from a variety of D&D races and classes. Since then, eight of the nine cast members have remained consistent, taking on different characters through three different campaigns. Former cast member Orion Acaba left the show a quarter of the way into their very first campaign. Though it was several years ago, the reason for his exit is still discussed and debated by fans.

Updated by Noelle Warner on January 12, 2024: While Orion Acaba left Critical Role many years ago, some newer fans to the franchise are wondering why he may have left. This article has been updated to include more details in regard to Acaba's departure, in addition to a formatting update to align this story with CBR's most recent style guidelines.

Why Did Orion Leave Critical Role?

Orion Acaba's Prominent Voice Roles:

Orion Acaba left Critical Role 27 episodes into the show's very first campaign, which obviously led to his character Tiberius Stormwind, a Dragonborn Sorceror, exiting the party, Vox Machina. Since his departure, Acaba attempted to launch a spin-off series wherein his character Tiberius returns to his homeland. However, the show was not successful and episodes of it were purged from YouTube. Additionally, due to legal reasons, Tiberius is not included in adaptations of the campaign, such as Amazon Prime's The Legend of Vox Machina.

While 27 episodes is a significant amount of time, the show has released hundreds since then, making his appearance less significant for newer fans, albeit still mysterious. While at first, the reasons for Acaba's departure were shrouded in mystery, Acaba himself officially acknowledged that he was leaving the show due to health reasons. Despite this official reason given by Acaba, fan speculation has run rampant and many suspect that these health-related issues were provided to cover up the true reasons for his departure.

Issues At The Table

Live plays, or actual plays, weren't very popular yet before Critical Role came onto the scene, and whenever a new format is coming about, there will always be a few kinks to work out in the early days. While the entire CR cast was trying to figure out how everything worked at the start of the first campaign, it was clear that one player wasn't always playing in the spirit of the game: Orion Acaba.

Fans love to speculate about what might have been going on between Acaba and his fellow castmates off-screen, but there were plenty of instances during the game itself when Acaba seemed to be at odds with the other players, rather than working with them. For example, there are multiple instances in the show's early episodes where Acaba appears to become frustrated or angry with other players, which rubbed many fans the wrong way upon viewing. Some have also accused him of stealing the spotlight from other players, or simply being outright rude to others at the table, but that's entirely up to interpretation. Acaba's character Tiberius would go off on his own quests that were completely separate from the group's main goals. He would spend minutes at a time arguing about the rules with DM Matt Mercer, which didn't make for very fun viewing.

Some viewers also voiced their discomfort at Tiberius' pursuit of one of the game's NPCs, Allura. While she and Tiberius had built up a rapport pre-stream, the romance between Allura and another character, Kima, had started to blossom during the first arc of the show. Upon the development of this relationship, some fans found it unsavory that Tiberius continued to persue Allura in spite of this relationship, and after it appeared to make her a bit uncomfortable. While these behaviors weren't egregious, the compounding effect of all of these separate issues started to grate on players after a while.

One of the more specific reasons that fans point to when discussing Orion's exit is cheating. While it has never been confirmed by anyone in the cast or crew of Critical Role, many fans have suggested that Orion would cheat when rolling dice to the point that other party members would check his roles. Perhaps easier to corroborate, fans have pointed out his heavy use of metagaming, which is when a player uses outside knowledge that their character should not know while playing the game. This is highly frowned upon when it comes to role-playing games and is considered a form of cheating.

Why Fans Think Orion Acaba Left Critical Role

Since Acaba's departure, fans have speculated about the true reasons for this abrupt exit. Some fans think that his exit had to do with the disagreements with other cast members. This theory is backed by opinions that he had a harsh temper, and as a result, his outbursts embarrassed the cast and crew of the show. Various other reasons for his exit have been discussed throughout the years. These span from scamming rumors regarding a crowdfunding project he started for a fan to sexual comments made during games, many of these being regularly and commonly discussed in fan spaces.

Acaba himself put out an official statement that cited health issues as the reason for his departure, while The Geek & Sundry Twitch channel simply stated that the two had parted ways on mutual terms. Since Acaba's exit, he has expressed a desire to return to the campaign. However, Critical Role has formally stated that he will not be returning.

While he was a memorable character in the early days of the Vox Machina campaign, the show has evolved since his appearance, and as such, his role in the show has minimized as time has gone by. Also, fan interest in Acaba has lowered significantly. His position as a debated and controversial figure among Critical Role fans has persisted, though he may not have a place in the show anymore. However, many fans refrain from discussing him with the desire to move on from Acaba entirely as they feel he is no longer relevant to Critical Role.

Closing Out Tiberius' Arc

While Acaba never returned to Critical Role, Tiberius made one last appearance in the show's first campaign after the player's departure. In episode 64, "The Frigid Doom," which is in the middle of the Chroma Conclave arc, the party comes across Tiberius' dead body. The Dragonborn was discovered by Percy as the party passed by Draconia. Tiberius had been frozen by one of the powerful dragons of the Chroma Conclave, Vorugal, as he tried to defend his home city. Vox Machina wasn't able to move his body at the time of discovery, but still performed a short burial service in his honor. After they defeated Vorugal, Scanlan arranged for Tiberius' body to be retrieved and to have a proper burial, with a tombstone that read "I Encourage Peace," a subversion of his catchphrase, "I encourage violence."

While it would have been easy for the cast of Critical Role to completely ignore Tiberius after Acaba left the show, giving him a proper hero's ending seems fitting for his character. Tiberius may not have always been a team player when it came to Vox Machina, but he was always looking out for his fellow Dragonborns and Draconians. It was satisfying for viewers to get a clear ending to Tiberius' story, and to see how he played his part against the dragons that were wreaking havok on Tal'Dorei.

Fans will never know the true nature of what caused Acaba's departure in full, but ultimately, it seems that all parties have moved on amicably enough. Critical Role has continued on into its third campaign, and on top of the animated adaptation of the first campaign, the company now has its own publishing company to create their own tabletop games. Acaba has also continued his own voice acting career, with his most recent work found in Dead Island 2 and Honkai: Star Rail.