Kollok actual play kicks off season 3 with a gonzo two-part premiere episode

polygon.com:

Actual play series like Critical Role and Dimension 20 are traditionally come-as-you-are affairs, with players and game masters alike looking like they just walked in off the street. That’s been especially true during the pandemic, which has seen troupes forced to play remotely via video conference tools like Zoom. Hyper RPG’s Kollok series, now in its third season, is completely different.

In Kollok players aren’t tiled on screen like the introduction of The Brady Bunch. Instead, they’re sitting side-by-side in a studio, in costumes and light makeup, monologuing dramatically to the camera. Players are flopping loosely on the table when they get knocked unconscious, spouting fake blood at each other, and generally trying to stay in character the entire time. It’s a much more gonzo style of actual play that goes well beyond using funny voices. It feels equal parts daring and experimental.

The program made its premiere on Monday night, kicking off a 20-episode arc airing live on AMC Network’s Fear HQ Twitch channel. The episode, the first after a two-year hiatus, wasn’t without its hiccups, but it more than made up for any technical difficulties with some solid performances and a couple good jump scares.

[Warning: What follows contains spoilers for the season 3 premiere of Kollok.]

Kollok takes place in a dystopian science fiction horror setting created by Zac Lim Eubank, former showrunner for Critical Role and Geek and Sundry, that runs on the Kids on Bikesruleset. It posits a timeline that diverges from our own in the early 1990s, a setting that spans 30 years after the last generation was born. Players are powerful members of The Ascended, one of nearly 300,000 children who share the same — humanity’s final —