When Supermassive Games released Until Dawn, it instantly became one of my favourite games. During the week that I had it, I played through it twice, then later bought it with the intention of doing more runs. However, too many other games, and unexpected health issues, kept me from returning to what was my Game of the Year.
In the years since, the studio has been busy, having released several other survival horror/narrative-driven choice games, including The Quarry (really good) and The Dark Pictures Anthology. While I only played three of the four in the latter series, they were unfortunately only pretty good at best, with the third one (House of Ashes) being boring and underwhelming.
Now, a month before its best title is due to be re-released in remade form, Supermassive is back with a new title. They call it The Casting of Frank Stone, and it’s not a new IP. It is, instead, related to the popular, multilayer horror game, Dead by Daylight. This isn’t that type of game, though.
Another narrative and choice-driven horror game, The Casting of Frank Stone is another chance to try and keep a number of characters alive. This time around, they’re dealing with the supernatural, as well as a slasher named Frank Stone.
This particular story is split into three intersecting timelines, and it jumps between them.
The first is 1963, where a policeman from the town of Cedar Mills ventures out to the local steel mill in search of a missing baby. The next is 1980, wherein a group of teens sneak into that same mill (which has become derelict and condemned), to film their own independent slasher film. Then, there’s modern day, where a young woman (and a couple others) are summoned to a mysterious mansion in the middle of the British woods.
All three timelines exist for a reason, and they come together in ways you won’t expect. However, the result is a rather convoluted storyline that is filled with cursed film strips, the supernatural and a killer who can be stopped by an old camera. It becomes quite a mess near the end, when it throws any semblance of sanity out the window, and becomes kind of hard to follow.
Of course, I must admit that I went into this game as a fan of Supermassive and its genre, as opposed to someone who’s played Dead by Daylight. Multiplayer horror games have never held much appeal to me. As such, I likely missed a number of nods to that game, outside of the many obvious ones that come via hidden Relliks, books and newspaper clippings. Needless to say, there’s a lot of fanfare here.
Unfortunately, The Casting of Frank Stone is one of those games where too little happens. It takes a while to get going, and when it does it’s not very scary or terribly entertaining. It’s merely decent, and has a surprising lack of Frank Stone given its title and its existence as a sort of origins story. It doesn’t help that your choices don’t seem to matter much by the end, and that there aren’t as many opportunities to lose characters as there normally are.
I had everyone survive except for one character, who happened to be my favourite. He died because of a dumb decision I made to fight back, when it wasn’t possible. Apparently, I could have fought back had I gotten extra money from his sibling and bought firecrackers with it. I guess that would have instigated some light combat sequence that would’ve been different from the game’s other form of ‘combat’: focusing a camera on an attacker and draining their life force by recording.
It is possible to go back and restart from a given choice, but that doesn’t seem to be possible until you’ve completed the game, at which point collectibles are also highlighted. This is done through the Cutting Room Floor, which (at least instant access to) is locked behind the Deluxe Edition of this game.
The Cutting Room Floor is a film styled web of choices, both made and potentially undertaken. It shows you all of the different outcomes that could’ve happened based on different decisions, and lets you go back and change things if you wish. You’ll have to play from that moment on, though, because you can’t just change one decision and expect to fast forward.
It’s a neat idea, and it seems to be pretty well implemented. However, I didn’t have the energy or time to go back and redo my choices.
With all that having been said, I guess it goes without saying that The Casting of Frank Stone isn’t one of Supermassive’s best games, which is too bad. I’d definitely rank it above The Dark Pictures Anthology: House of Ashes, though. It’s decent, and that’s all.
On the presentation side of things, you’ll find some nice-looking character models and good voice acting. However, there’s some stuttering, scene changes aren’t always seamless, and there’s an odd flickering issue that pertains to lighting. Otherwise, the game looks pretty good.
If you’re a fan of Dead by Daylight, you’ll definitely want to play The Casting of Frank Stone. However, its worth to others will depend on how much they’re willing to pay for a mediocre game of this ilk that isn’t terribly long. Supermassive fans will surely want to play it, too, but should wait for a sale.
This review is based on the Xbox Series X version of the game, which we were provided with.