The Casting of Frank Stone review

The Casting of Frank Stone is the ultimate narrative-based adventure for fans of the Dead by Daylight franchise, or those who can’t get enough of Supermassive Games’ horrific endeavours. It wears its influences on its sleeve and isn’t afraid to have fun, as Supermassive’s past projects — Until Dawn, The Quarry, The Dark Pictures Anthology — have shown us already.

It’s a short, entertaining romp that doesn’t take itself too seriously, and while I think its best moments will be lost on those who aren’t familiar with Dead by Daylight, The Casting of Frank Stone goes to show that Supermassive Games is, continually, going from strength to strength.

It’s about time that Behaviour Interactive decided to expand on Dead by Daylight’s lore — beyond Hooked On You: A Dead by Daylight Dating Simulator we received in 2022 — and I was overjoyed to see that Behaviour had chosen Supermassive Games to be the developer to do so.

For any horror fan, this is a match made in heaven; if any studio is going to properly delve into the nitty-gritty, gruesome lore of The Entity and the survivors and killers it has trapped within its realm, it’s going to be Supermassive, and the developer is certainly not one to skimp out on gore and brutality. The developer makes sure you are squirming in your seat, and that’s not just by ensuring you can accidentally kill off your favorite character with ease. Yes, I did that. More than once.

The gory spooks, and the fact that Supermassive’s QTE-laden, dialogue-driven gameplay pairs so nicely with the Dead by Daylight gameplay loop. This wouldn’t really be a Dead by Daylight game without a generator or two to repair and those pesky skill checks, and fans have not been let down. There are many nods, some explicit and some not so, that point towards Dead by Daylight, as well as Supermassive’s own past projects. Ultimately, fans of either developer have plenty to sink their teeth into and get excited about here.

The game itself begins at a run-down, decrepit mill, where Officer Sam Green is sent to investigate the mysterious disappearance of a teenage boy, and ends up finding a lot more than he bargained for. Throughout this prologue, the tone for your typical teen slasher is immediately set; you’re quickly fighting the urge to scream at your screen and tell Sam Green to turn around and go home. After all, who discovers a rotting carcass and dismembered ear, then thinks, “Hey, let’s not call for backup, and let’s keep going, actually”. It’s here that we first meet the eponymous Frank Stone and mysterious figure, Augustine Lieber; two characters pivotal to the chilling tale that is about to unfold.

After the brief but thrilling prologue, you get to the real meat of the game, which is told in different time periods. You’ll first meet the likes of Madi, Linda, and Stan, who have all been summoned to Gerant Manor — a suitably spooky manor house that feels as though it has been pulled from The Woman in Black — to strike a deal; a deal involving handing over unseen-before strips of seventies film, Murder Mill, to your unsettling host.

This is where our throwbacks then come in, as you travel back to the filming of Murder Mill in Cedar Hills, where a young Linda and her companions — Robert, Jaime, and Chris — are at the helm. This is not long after the horrific acts of Frank Stone were committed, and when the group decide to visit the mill where it all happened to capture some final scenes, it comes as no surprise at all that this group of meddling teens land themselves in trouble. As they do, our characters in the present day wind up in a spot of bother too.

It’s all very Alan Wake 2 at times with its flashbacks and cinematic shots, and The Casting of Frank Stone appears wholly aware of this. Dead by Daylight, after all, has been a game that celebrates all things horror for almost a decade now, so for a solo adventure such as this to similarly feature such influences — including moments reminiscent of P.T., Fatal Frame, and more — feels incredibly apt.

Instances like this paired with the abundance of Dead by Daylight Easter eggs ultimately make The Casting of Frank Stone so much more than an expansion of Dead by Daylight’s underarching lore; instead, it feels like a celebration of a passion for horror, and those who have had any love for DBD at all will particularly appreciate all of the game’s relics and homages to the past that can be found by more curious players.

On that note, I can’t neglect to mention the dialogue, either. Often awkward and goofy, it did break my immersion at times, but at no point does it feel out of place in this slasher flick. Supermassive is not creating a B-movie here, that’s for sure, but time and time again, it shows off that it knows how to replicate one with quality and style. These grand, cinematic adventures from Supermassive often hail back to seventies and eighties horror cinema, and The Casting of Frank Stone is no different in that sense.

That goofy, out-of-place dialogue works wonders in making the game as amusing as it is horrifying; something that I find incredibly important when it comes to convincing non-horror fans to play these games with me. This dark, twisted humor in light of terrifying moments is what I expect from both Supermassive Games and Behaviour Interactive, and once again, the developer has shown that it knows its audience inside and out, and has nailed the tone of its story on multiple levels.

The Casting of Frank Stone’s best and worst moments were showcased during its ending; an ending that I felt had come all too soon. It’s safe to say that I expected a little more from the closing sequences of the game, though I did kill off a couple of characters (unintentionally!) during my initial run, and can imagine the ending might be wholly different had I laid out different fates for them. That said, it’s the ending of The Casting of Frank Stone that Dead by Daylight fans will really rejoice in; it’s equal parts disturbing and amusing, offering fitting endings for its array of characters while setting the stage for those we encounter in Dead by Daylight.

Those who have always wanted to know more about how Dead by Daylight’s cast of characters came to be trapped in a never-ending nightmare by The Entity will be wholly pleased to finally have some answers, especially if the DBD-stylised achievements and endless Easter eggs didn’t already have you foaming at the mouth. If you’re a fan of Dead by Daylight or The Dark Pictures Anthology, The Casting of Frank Stone is an absolutely must-play for you. Even then, those unfamiliar with the series’ will still find something to appreciate during this entertaining, albeit fleeting, experience

The Casting of Frank Stone is available now on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S. The game was reviewed on PC with a code provided by the publisher.