The Casting of Frank Stone is available now on the PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Steam, and the Epic Games Store. We reviewed the game on PC using a code provided by the publisher.
The term “crossover event,” whether considered as “the most ambitious” or “the biggest,” tends to be thrown around haphazardly. Yet that’s what we have with The Casting of Frank Stone, the latest offering from developer Supermassive Games and publisher Behaviour Interactive. Two studios known for their respective hits–The Dark Pictures Anthology along with Until Dawn and The Quarry for the former, and the hit multiplayer title Dead by Daylight for the latter–have joined forces to create a horror game that has a few thrills.
Based on the Dead by Daylight universe, The Casting of Frank Stone is an “interactive movie” romp that takes you to multiple time periods filled with choices, consequences, and quick-time events (QTEs). Sadly, this crossover also fails to stick the landing at certain points.
The Casting of Frank Stone’s story starts in 1963 where I played as a police officer named Sam. Investigating the disappearance of a child after a string of murders in the quiet town of Cedar Hills, Sam ends up worse for wear when he encounters the titular Frank Stone, a serial killer on the loose. After successfully passing button-press and button-mash QTE sequences, I managed to shoot Frank in the head. However, this wouldn’t be the last I’d hear of him, as the grasping claws of the Entity, an otherworldly threat, loomed over its latest deranged champion.
Note that the above was the part that I got to play during last month’s preview, when I was quite eager to see how the narrative would play out. I’ve been a huge fan of Supermassive’s and Behaviour’s releases over the years and hearing about this collaboration was certainly a treat. Unfortunately, as each chapter unfolded, I began to see some glaring issues.
Chief among these is that several characters were just plainly unlikable. In the previously released games, there were at least one or two characters that I found relatable or at least fun to play as, such as Ashley in Until Dawn or Salim in House of Ashes. Here, there’s a woman who’s overly excited to meet everyone, a stereotypical nice-guy-bossy-girl couple, and a rich snob who I’m glad is unplayable since I’d have killed him off once the opportunity presented itself. Facial animations and even idle animations looked janky as well.
Twisting timelines and time periods
The story itself is both a hit and a miss. If you’re a fan of Dead by Daylight, then you’ll certainly appreciate the nods and references to the game, from the rituals involving the Entity to a type of collectible known as a Rellik. This is “killer” spelled backwards, as these are dolls depicting the player-controlled spirits and murderers from Behaviour’s 4v1 asymmetric multiplayer horror game.
Likewise, I was engrossed at how the overall arc was presented. From 1963 which looked at the origin (and premature end) of Frank Stone, the chapters alternated between 1980 and 2024. The 1980 arc follows teens making a B-movie, right in the same Cedar Hill mill where the murders took place decades prior. The present-day arc, meanwhile, looks at the mysterious nature of that film and what became of the filmmakers. These arcs are interwoven in great detail and certain reveals even made me gasp and cheer because they came as huge surprises.
Regrettably, the story also has a lot of plot holes. After finishing the game in roughly eight hours, there were still questions left unanswered. The more I delved into the narrative devices and explanations, the more I realized that some key portions just weren’t properly conveyed or addressed during the campaign. (I thought about adding more details in this review, but these would delve into major spoiler territory.)
Quick deaths and button presses
As for the gameplay, The Casting of Frank Stone’s mechanics should be familiar to anyone who’s played Supermassive’s previous releases. For the uninitiated, the interactive movie-style approach means that you explore small areas with a character, where contextual actions or moving to a new location tends to trigger a cutscene. Some of these cutscenes have the aforementioned QTEs, where you have to press or mash on buttons to succeed.
In a couple of cases, there are skill checks to repair generators, something that Dead by Daylight veterans are experts on. Moreover, you may encounter a spectral enemy that can only be defeated through the use of a camera, part Fatal Frame in concept though more akin to Ghostbusters trap in function. These sections are fairly unchallenging to a fault, though there are still options to disable timers completely.
There are also numerous dialogue responses, some of which affect the relationships among characters. Similarly, there are more crucial decisions, and there are those that can lead to survival or death. This choice-and-consequence concept is where The Casting of Frank Stone truly shines, since it manages to capture the viciousness and suddenness of death in the most horrific of ways.
For instance, halfway through the campaign, a reanimated Frank Stone appeared in front of the lovey-dovey couple. As Jaime, I could either rescue Chris, his girlfriend, or run away with my tail tucked between my legs. Thinking that I should play hero, I decided to confront Frank Stone, only to see Jaime chopped in half with no warning. A couple of chapters later while playing as Madison, one of the characters from the 2024 arc, I had to solve a rather simple puzzle involving a terminal and a strange machine. Knowing I could press a button to deactivate the device, I waited a bit longer and watched as Madison was burned to a crisp by eldritch energies.
The way the characters meet their demise in all sorts of situations is shocking to behold, though also a bit disappointing since most of the remaining death scenes occur during the last two chapters. I would’ve preferred seeing riskier actions and graver consequences in more segments. Sadly, with most of these moments shown near the end of the game, the overall experience lacked the necessary scares and thrills.
The cutting room floor
On the bright side, The Casting of Frank Stone includes a cool feature known as the Cutting Room Floor. Supermassive’s previous titles had a Scene Selection feature, one that lets you choose the start of a particular chapter so you can play from that point. Scene Selection was very limited, that I often found myself making dozens of backup saves just to skip a few portions.
The Cutting Room Floor, however, is a beefier improvement. It shows multiple starting points for each chapter, allowing you to replay from that scene onward. Even better, it gives you a rough outline of the numerous branching paths. These are alternate outcomes depending on choices that you made, the characters that are still alive, and actions that you succeeded or failed in. There are a whopping 224 branching paths, and a bunch of collectibles to acquire, which makes this an absolutely helpful feature for completionists like me.
Going back to what I said earlier, The Casting of Frank Stone is a crossover that had me excited months ago. Having extensively played it now, it’s clear that this is a misstep lacking a foreboding atmosphere and truly terrifying scares. Nevertheless, I can say that this title also presents an interesting concept, with a universe and setting that ought to be fully explored by two creative studios should they continue to collaborate. Let’s just hope that the next one is a significant improvement compared to this first outing. – Rappler.com
Jason Rodriguez is a freelance writer from the Philippines. He’s contributed to various gaming outlets, including GameSpot, Digital Trends, Polygon, PCGamesN, Game Informer, UploadVR, and more. He has around 5,000 published articles—around 160 game reviews and the rest, well most of them, are guides. You can follow him on X: @JasonR_EG.