The Casting of Frank Stone

Developer: Supermassive Games
Publisher: Behaviour Interactive
Platforms: PC (Previewed), Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5
Release Date: September 3, 2024
Price: $39.99 USD – Available Here

When it comes to collaborations, Dead by Daylight has seen plenty of them. The asymmetrical multiplayer horror game that sees four survivors try to escape a singular killer features not only its original killers but a wide range of famous killers from horror films throughout the decades and even some survivors to help round things out. That being said, when it was announced that the franchise that remains quite popular eight years after release would be joining hands with Supermassive Games, best known for their narrative survival games such as Until Dawn, The Dark Pictures Anthology, and The Quarry, it came as something of a surprise. While both teams have some great experience crafting horrific encounters and spooky villains, they do so in such a different manner that one wonders just how Supermassive Games would take a property like this and do what they do best. Well, now that we’ve had a sample demo featuring the first chapter of The Casting of Frank Stone, we have a bit of a taste of things to come.

Those familiar with Supermassive’s works know that players will often take on the role of a character that has to take on various quick time events, skill checks, and dialogue choices that may determine their fate and that remains true here. Set in 1963 we take on the role of Sam, a police officer that has been assigned from another district to help search for a missing child. With many members of Cedar Hills seemingly taking this mystery lightly, Sam has traveled to the local steel mill and found that it’s only guarded by a single guard sleeping on the job and his canine pal that’s gone AWOL. Immediately we were presented with a few dialogue options about confronting the security guard’s demeanor and status and, as we found out later, how Sam treats the character will play a role in how well the guard manages to hold up near the end of the preview.

For the most part our time with the demo felt incredibly familiar when compared to past Supermassive Games entries as we, controlling Sam, explored through the dark and eventually sinister depths of the steel mill, collecting some tidbits of documents that could be examined, some odd collectables, a few clues, and even a very obvious reference to Dead by Daylight itself. Along the way there was some climbing up boxes and using an item, these elements that Supermassive had experimented slightly with in The Devil in Me, to advance as well as some familiar quick time events and “skill checks.” These are now stylized in a manner that makes them look just like they would in Dead by Daylight, including the quick time “skill check” events that can change how some events play out. For example, one time we succeeded saving Sam from stumbling and the second we failed, finding out that a failure resulted in a broken flashlight that made not only navigation a bit more difficult but a confrontation played out a bit differently as well.

Of course, in Supermassive’s games an early failure like these are usually simple affairs without major consequence, often designed to be a tutorial of sorts, as later failures could be far deadlier for the characters we are controlling. It is also nice to note that a quality of life feature that many have hoped for is already apparent in this demo and it is an indicator showing that players will be leaving a location permanently, meaning if they have any exploration left to do they should. This usually could be a problem in past adventure games as players never quite knew whether exploring one direction meant continuing down the main path and missing out on either extra lore or a collectible.

Now on to the potential crux that many may be worrying about, does it seem like The Casting of Frank Stone is exclusively for fans of Dead by Daylight or can newcomers unfamiliar with the multiplayer game come in and enjoy this new playable horror game without it? While we can’t say for sure at this point, the demo does lean towards the latter as the only overt references to the Dead by Daylight universe itself is an aforementioned collectible as well as the “Entity” itself. Even the titular Frank Stone doesn’t actually exist as a killer in Dead by Daylight at this time. That being said, what is present in The Casting of Frank Stone will scratch some extra itches for those already coming into the game as fans of Behaviour Interactive’s popular title even if it leaves plenty left to be answered still and tons of shadowy questions about where the story will continue past this prologue offered in the demo.

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All in all, The Casting of Frank Stone manages to strike a solid introduction here in this demo as it, at least so far, feels quite similar to how fans of Supermassive’s works expect it to by exploring, making choices that may alter a character’s fate, and trying to succeed in quick time events and all new “skill checks” all while basing itself around the darker and sinister lore that makes up the Dead by Daylight universe. It’ll be interesting to see just how Frank Stone plays into the grander scheme of things, if at all, and just how much the unknown force of the Entity will come into play once The Casting of Frank Stone arrives fully on September 3rd for the Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, and PC.