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Supermassive has a super massive problem, and it’s The Casting of Frank Stone. It’s the first major spin-off set in the Dead by Daylight universe (because I refuse to count Hooked on You and my now complicated feelings about Trapper), but it does nothing with the opportunity. Frank Stone dresses up in Behaviour‘s lore but allows little of substance beneath. The result is a porcelain doll, beautiful but soulless, without the heartbeat of the creature that inspired it. It feels, ultimately, like a 6-hour advertisement for another game, leaving the entire experience tasting of commercial appetites. I enjoyed The Casting of Frank Stone, but I won’t argue that it’s good.
The Casting of Frank Stone Review
Film-making friends bumble their way into the path of a killer. This opens the door for eldritch horrors, the secrets of a small town, and an old mill the locals would rather forget. Following in the cinematic footsteps of The Quarry, Frank Stone is an atmospheric narrative game. That means third-person exploration, a tapestry of interlocking cutscenes, and the risk of key characters dying because you trusted the wrong person or sneezed and missed a skill check. Unlike The Quarry, however, The Casting of Frank Stone flounders in the black waters of the IP it’s based on, smothering any authentic tension in its crib.
Story: The Cutting Room Floor
On the trail of a missing infant, police officer Sam Green sets out to investigate Cedar Steel Mill. It’s 1963. The investigation soon leads Sam to Thomas, the mill’s aged caretaker, who reluctantly assists in the investigation. Bad gets worse when the pair finds Thomas’s missing dog gorging itself on a pile of indistinguishable meat. Meat that contains a severed human ear. Undaunted, Sam ventures inside the mill, and there he confronts a hulking figure wearing a broken welder’s mask. Frank Stone. Sam goes for his gun.
How that confrontation with the titular baddie goes depends on your choices. Regardless, the story picks up in 2024, back in Gerant Manor, where several strangers are gathering. Though they’ve never met, something binds them together. Each owns a piece of unique, ill-fated video reel: one that might hold secrets darker (and more personal) than they care to know. The Casting of Frank Stone is nothing without its story, making it difficult to discuss core elements without light spoilers. That said, no big reveals are forthcoming.
With 650ish hours in Dead by Daylight, I’m a beginner in many respects and far from an expert in the lore. I know enough, however, to appreciate the supergiant-blotting-out-planets scope of the missed opportunity this is. The Entity (an eldritch spider-thing that torments humanity from its own private universe) can do a lot. It has, canonically, plucked Pyramid Head, Dracula, Leatherface, and countless other killers from their respective universe and brought them to its realm to serve its insatiable hunger for human sacrifice. It’s a license to dream big, but it stays in Supermassive’s wallet.
Dead by Daylight‘s lore is woven from parallel universes, magic, sci-fi gadgetry, and Lovecraftian horror, yet The Casting of Frank Stone goes out of its way to do almost nothing with any of it. Imagine if instead of hiding in a crowd of lookalikes, Waldo waltzed off the page holding a sign reading “I’m the real Waldo” and shook your hand. It’s a betrayal of the premise. Supermassive’s writers delivered a fantastic story with The Quarry, and it’s hard to see such a misstep from this talented team. Nor is that even the biggest problem with The Casting, as we’ll soon see.
Gameplay: The Illusion of Choice
The Casting of Frank Stone consists mostly of cutscenes and linear exploration sequences. Your choices (and your performance during skill checks and other Quick Time Events) determine the outcome of each scene and the story’s overall direction. Does Stan’s creepy schmoozing irritate Madison or entice her? Does Sam trust the old caretaker or suspect him? Sometimes the stakes are low, with hurt feelings ruling the day. Other times a choice can kill a character with spectacular violence.
You’ll spend most of your six or so hours in Frank Stone as a passive observer. No, lore hounds, not that Observer. Do you pick up the hitchhiker? Mess with the crime scene? Make a friend or betray someone’s trust? Click yes or no, maybe spam a button, and then take your hands back off the steering wheel. Walking sims draw you in with compelling atmospheres and exploration despite lacking deep mechanics, but The Casting can’t stop cracking jokes about Léry’s long enough. Frank Stone isn’t bad because it has minimal mechanics; it’s bad because it betrays the one thing it’s supposed to be about.
It feels like the game was built brick by brick on the assumption that you and I enjoy nothing more than a good reference. Your hunt for collectibles feels like a bid for time, padding the bones of an otherwise thin game. The first collectible I found was a chess piece, the Iridescent King. Do you need to know that’s one of The Doctor‘s add-ons to appreciate this moment? Yes. Does the story justify it in literally any way? No. This happens so often that the entire experience reeks of fan service. It feels like Supermassive is aggressively elbowing you in the ribs to make sure you get the reference.
Frank Stone‘s greatest flaw, the thing that damns it, is that the outcomes of your decisions are rarely satisfying. Even on multiple playthroughs (or when using Cutting Room Floor mode to jump across the story at will, freely exploring the branching choices), little feels consequential. Again, the best point of comparison is Supermassive’s own work. Significant choices riddled The Quarry. The danger felt more immediate and harder to escape, but even when I wasn’t trying to dodge a creature’s claws, I felt invested in the ripples of my decisions. A big part of that comes down to likeability.
Except for Bonnie, I found the cast of The Casting unlikeable, and one charming goth isn’t enough to carry an ensemble. If that sounds like a story issue, it is one, but it has big implications for gameplay as well. Branching narratives don’t work when you don’t care what direction things go, and these characters don’t have enough dimension to inspire strong feelings. Funny, awkward, and raw characters gave substance to Supermassive’s earlier work, but there’s no Ryan or Laura to draw us into The Entity’s Realm. It doesn’t help that several big decisions lead to exactly the same result.
Graphics & Audio: Leaving Scratch Marks
Cedar Steel Mill looms above Sam, its crude ironwork angled towards him like the legs of some terrible spider. His flashlight sweeps the mill’s courtyard in smooth strokes, dust clouding the beam. Sam’s footfalls bounce and come back hollow. Before the stillness can sink in, a cry breaks through. Thomas, shouting for his dog. There’s something moving, deeper in the factory, just beyond Sam’s light. Sam pushes past twisted metal and rain-swollen wood. There’s blood on the ground ahead. And meat.
The Casting of Frank Stone is an undeniable vibe. Supermassive’s attention to environmental detail is extraordinary. Every clock, steam pipe, and cinderblock received attention, with beautiful models and textures. It’s a game that lets you count every hair in Thomas’s unibrow, if you have the time and inclination. It’s a shame we spend so little time in control of the characters. That said, I did experience several instances of animation desync. Character movements feel stiffer here than in The Quarry, too, undercutting the voice acting with stiff lips and wooden cheeks.
The stuttering is a bigger problem. It wasn’t common, but I experienced several nasty lag spikes during my playthrough. Whether it’s an optimization issue or Thomas’s unibrow is just that difficult to render, it scuffed several monologues and put a damper on some otherwise enjoyable moments. It’s the kind of problem likely to get patched out, but for now, it’s a buzzkill, and a game so dependent on mood can’t afford it. Issues with Frank Stone‘s plot and pacing had already hamstrung the tension, only for lag to come by and kick it in the shins.
The VO, music, and SFX are excellent. It turns out the skill check sound is Dead by Daylight‘s secret nostalgia sauce. It’s unfortunate the sheer number of references poisons the story. Without spoiling the specifics, various DbD killers, perks, weapons, and locations appear throughout The Casting, albeit almost always as figurines or other incidentals. We were never going to be set loose in Dead Dawg Saloon, Azarov’s, and the Garden of Joy, but I’d almost rather Supermassive have failed in that attempt. It’s a matter of taste, but I’ll die arguing The Casting of Frank Stone was exactly the wrong time to play it safe.
Conclusion: On Death Hook
DbD‘s canon is a shuffling mutant that even The Unknown would avoid, but it’s our shuffling mutant. I love Frank Stone the way I love pre-nerf Decisive Strike: reluctantly, as it stabs at my heart. The Casting of Frank Stone is for Dead by Daylight‘s lore-delvers and 10,000-hour Nurses. If you adore the house that Behaviour built, warts and all, I recommend it. If you want an enthralling horror story, however, this isn’t it. Still, Frank Stone sits in the shadow of something great, and I’m happy to sit there with it for a while.
Review copy given by Publisher.
The Casting of Frank Stone (PC Reviewed)
The Casting of Frank Stone spins a cinematic narrative that ditches most of Dead by Daylight's deep lore in favor of uninspiring choices.
Pros
- Excellent environmental design
- Great music and SFX
- Plentiful references and in-jokes
Cons
- Most choices feel pointless
- Oversaturation of references
- Lag, animation desync, and bugs
