There are two types of people that are going to be attracted to The Casting of Frank Stone: Dead by Daylight fans, looking for a new game set in the universe of their favorite asymmetrical multiplayer game, or Supermassive fans, who want to see the latest cinematic game from the studio behind Until Dawn and The Dark Pictures Anthology.
I fall into the latter camp, as I’ve played all their non-VR titles since Until Dawn (even Hidden Agenda, the one that used your smartphone as a controller). They’re not always hits, but there’s usually at least something interesting in every one of their games, so it’s cool to see them take their signature movie-like style of game into an already existing universe.
While I dipped my toes in Dead by Daylight in the past, I’m not familiar with the story aside from some border concepts like the Entity and the Trials. Fortunately, The Casting of Frank Stone drew me in with a plotline that revolves around one of my favorite topics in fiction: filmmaking. After a prologue set in the ’60s (which is available as a demo), the story of the game is split between two different eras, both of them focusing on a film called Murder Mill. The balance between the storylines is nice, cutting back and forth to maximize tension. Having multiple narratives can occasionally make one feel less important than the other, but connections between the two become apparent as the narrative progresses in a way that makes them both key to the whole picture.
Supermassive’s games live or die based on the cast of characters, and this cast is well-written and entangled in a compelling set of relationships. There’s a group of teen filmmakers in the ’80s that are all very warmly-written with interesting tensions between them. In the present, you’ve got a seemingly random cast of characters brought together in a large, spooky mansion for mysterious reasons, and it’s fun to watch them slowly figure out connections that they have as the drama unfolds. Everyone feels like they have a distinct personality, and each of them gets good lines throughout. Aside from the titular Frank Stone, the other villain in the story plays their part well, and these two are largely responsible for adding the connections to the greater Dead by Daylight mythology.
Even without full context for the universe of Dead by Daylight, I was able to enjoy the story quite a bit. It takes a while to start picking up steam, but the time you spend with the characters helps make the narrative beats work when things start to really hit the fan. Supermassive games have had supernatural twists in the past, with wendigos and other such creatures, but this feels like the most fantastical their stories have gotten. It eventually becomes a little too focused on the lore of the Entity for my taste, but for the most part it does so without losing focus on the core cast. My limited knowledge of the game still allowed me to pick up satisfying references to the Dead by Daylight that came to light near the end of the game, so I’m certain fans of the multiplayer game will be delighted.
Quick time events are a backbone of the Supermassive experience, and this time around they are themed to emulate the prompt seen when fixing a generator in a Dead by Daylight match. It doesn’t have a huge effect on the gameplay, but it did take me a moment to get used to the different visual cue. There are even a few times in the game where you run into the actual generators themselves, which fits into the game nicely without feeling like an unnecessary reference.
If you’ve played this type of game before, you mostly know what to expect. There will be quick time events in moments of danger, dialog choices that affect relationships between characters, and life and death decisions that will change the course of the story. Between the interactive cutscenes, there are areas where you explore and solve extremely light puzzles, usually just finding an object and using it at the correct location. Turning off steam vents, powering up elevators, and finding an item to place in a specifically shaped slot are the types of puzzles you’re looking at, which sometimes feel a bit like cliché video game busy work, even if they do fit well into the locations presented.
You’ll pick up items and lore notes that will help flesh out the backstory and bring a greater understanding of the overall narrative. One feature I love about the lore notes is that there’s a quick summary presented in the UI after you are done examining it, highlighting the information that you should have gleaned from it. Little touches like that go a long way to helping you grasp everything, and they’ve been doing this kind of game for long enough that they’ve found ways to sand off the rough edges, gameplay-wise. Even small things like having a different icon for interactions that will move the story forward versus normal objects that you can pick up and inspect helps keep things flowing nicely.
I don’t know if it was because of the shorter run time – The Casting of Frank Stone takes about six hours to complete – but I didn’t feel like I had as many choices in the game that greatly deviated the story, nor were there as many quick time events that put pressure on me in tense sequences. There was a new gameplay element that featured using the 8MM camera, but it didn’t feel quite as transformative as I hoped. These sequences seemed like they were trying to ratchet up the terror, but the simplicity of the gimmick never really made me feel much danger. Still, it was nice to have a new way to view and interact with the world.
After my playthrough, I felt like I had a few unanswered questions that I don’t think were just gaps in lore that I had from not being a Dead by Daylight superfan, but fortunately The Casting of Frank Stone’s Cutting Room Floor feature gave me opportunities to go back to key points of the story and see things play out differently. One of the most frustrating parts of cinematic games like this is that to see all the other paths, you need to replay the full game, but the Cutting Room Floor shows you the decision map of the game and lets you see different possibilities you missed. This is a much-welcomed addition to Supermassive’s style of game that will greatly help replay value.
The Casting of Frank Stone looks incredible, with great character models and environments. I really loved the vibe each of the locations brought to the game, particularly the mill itself. The imposing establishing shot of it absolutely rules, conveying the gravity of what you’re doing as you approach. Not only are the characters extremely detailed as well, but the performance capture is stellar, with some great facial acting that feels like a step above a lot of their older titles.
There are still a few nagging graphic issues that continue to show up, but nothing too major. Sometimes textures load in a little late, or a black screen pops up for a split second when it’s loading between scenes, clearly taking a moment to figure out which version of the scene to load for you based on your choices. These are the types of things that will likely be ironed out with future patches, but even if you have to deal with these they are absolutely nothing that will take you out of the experience.
Bringing together Supermassive and Dead by Daylight was a very smart decision, as there’s a lot to like here for fans of both. You’ve got another solid narrative game with well-written characters and a branching story for Supermassive fans, and a new look at the universe with tantalizing lore and cool collectibles for Dead by Daylight fans. It’s hard to think of a better studio for Behaviour to pair with in order to tell standalone tales in the Dead by Daylight universe, so I hope this is the start of a good relationship.
The Casting of Frank Stone might not rank up there with the top tier of Supermassive games – for me that’s Until Dawn and The Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes – but it’s definitely exciting to see them experiment with different styles of narratives. By the end of the game, I was engaged with the wild supernatural horrors of the world and re-downloaded Dead by Daylight to give it another shot.
Review key provided by publisher. The Casting of Frank Stone is out now on the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series, and on PC via Steam and the Epic Games Store.