[4] "The 304-page campaign guide takes players to a continent rife with conflict and magic" and details the four distinct regions of Wildemount in the world of Exandria.

[9][10][11] The Menagerie Coast sits on the south-western coastline next to the Lucidian Ocean and is governed by the Clovis Concord, a coalition of eight city-states which includes Nicodranas and Port Damali.

[3]: 6:06  Wildemount was designed with an Eastern European influence;[14][9] specifically, the Dwendalian Empire was inspired by 15th century Russia and Prussia, Xhorhas by 13th-century Romania, and the edges by 14th-century Spain.

[17] In response to questions on whether the book was canon and whether it had gone through rigorous playtesting, Jeremy Crawford, the lead rules designer of Dungeons & Dragons, confirmed that the Explorer's Guide to Wildemount is an official Wizards of the Coast product.

[19]: 0:11 Inverse reported that the Explorer's Guide to Wildemount follows the trend of Wizards of the Coast publishing material that originated in Dungeons & Dragons live play series.

Acquisitions Incorporated (2019) was based on the live play series it was named after and Baldur's Gate: Descent Into Avernus (2019) included Joe Manganiello's character Arkhan.

"[6] Academic Emma French, in Real Life in Real Time: Live Streaming Culture (2023), highlighted the Explorer's Guide to Wildemount as an example of Wizards of the Coast "directly" acknowledging Critical Role – "while this may simply be a decision by Wizards of the Coast to capitalize on the new revenues that actual play's popularity has generated, it shows that these live streams have the ability not simply to promote, but also to alter the game product with which it is engaging".

[14]: 99 On January 13, 2020, Explorer's Guide to Wildemount "rocketed to #3 on Amazon's best sellers list, then, according to Wizards of the Coast's Greg Tito, reached the #1 spot by Monday afternoon.

[27] Corey Plante, for Inverse, reported that "in terms of new mechanics, Explorer's Guide to Wildemount could be even more significant to D&D than Wizards' November release, Eberron: Rising From the Last War, which introduced Artificer as a new class thanks to the unique school of magic Matthew Mercer created for Critical Role Season 2: Dunamancy".

Plante commented that "at a more fundamental level, dunamancy acknowledges the Many Worlds Interpretation of quantum mechanics, which asserts that an infinite number of branching timelines exist" and while the exact presentation "remains to be seen", he thought it sounded "exciting".

[20] Sead Fadilpasic, for TheGamer, reported on the negative criticism the Explorer's Guide to Wildemount announcement received and on Matthew Mercer's response on Reddit.

[...] His post garnered a lot of attention – mostly positive – with people praising his work and encouraging him, going to show that while those with disparaging opinions and voices may be loud, they still do not make up the entire community".

[31] Charlie Hall, for Polygon, wrote that the book is "written with a warmth and care uncommon in these sorts of things" and "may be the best example of its type yet created for the role-playing game's 5th edition.

Hall highlighted that book breaks from traditional fantasy tropes and that it "gives guidance on how the different races perceive one another based on their cultural attitudes and prejudices".

[33] Richard Jansen-Parkes, for the UK print magazine Tabletop Gaming, wrote that Explorer's Guide to Wildemount "doesn’t concern itself with trying to shake-up the classic D&D formula too much" which he viewed as a great strength of the sourcebook.

He noted "sparks of originality here and there", such as the Krynn Dynasty, with "the most creative ideas" focused on the "local level, rather than ones that radically shape the flow of the entire world".

[34] Meehan thought the Heroic Chronicle was "far superior to the shallow backgrounds available" in the standard Player's Handbook (2014) character creation process.

[37] James Grebey, for Syfy Wire, also highlighted that the book "adds some nuance to one of the most harmful tropes in D&D" and "crucially, while there are bad actors among the Kryn, they're not evil solely because of their race.

[9] Academics Lisa Horton and David Beard, in the book The Routledge Handbook of Remix Studies and Digital Humanities, viewed the Kryn Dynasty and Xhorhasian culture as "a departure and significant extension of D&D lore surrounding drow" and highlighted that their religion is centered on "the physical manifestation of light itself, the Luxon, and the pursuit off immortality".