The Casting of Frank Stone Review

As much as I love all things horror, you won’t find me in a theatre watching terrors unfold on the big screen. I prefer the comfort of my home, lights dimmed and two trusty doggos at my side, where I can yell at an actor when they trek down basement stairs and frantically point out when something is lurking in the shadows. I don’t necessarily want to be inside a spooky film, but intervening sounds great. It’s no surprise then that Supermassive’s style of games is right up my alley: the blend of movie-esque cutscenes, unsettling mysteries, branching dialogue choices, and intense quick-time events are a chef’s kiss combo that I’ve enjoyed ever since Until Dawn came out in 2015. I’m happy (and sorry) to say The Casting of Frank Stone continues my long-standing tradition of accidentally killing much of Supermassive’s horror ensemble in a single playthrough. Its twists and turns have already taken me down multiple paths in my search for new cutscenes and better endings, and with this being a Dead by Daylight tale, I’ve met my fair share of hooks and broken generators along the way.

Until Dawn and The Quarry are good at making you feel like you’re playing through a horror movie, but the premise of The Casting of Frank Stone actually revolves around a group of teens making their own film. Set in the 1980s, these young friends have a Super 8mm camera, a dramatic script, fake blood, and the perfect shooting location, which just so happens to be the murder site of local killer, Frank Stone. When problems arise, they’re not just the haunting, ghostly kind of issues that you’d expect — things get cosmically chaotic, as choices begin affecting the past, present, and future. You’ll hop between multiple timelines in an attempt to piece it all together. The consistent uptick in strange occurrences and reality-bending moments is intriguing on its own, but if you’re a Dead by Daylight fan, that strangeness will feel fitting since the lore of the Entity is already as otherworldly as it gets. While Frank Stone’s tale tethers DBD to a seemingly mundane world, one where children yell at their parents and cars break down on the side of a road, there’s nothing ordinary about this story.

When it comes to the dialogue, I’ll admit I wish it were tighter in the game’s later portions. Many of the characters cut each other off, fail to explain things thoroughly, and speak in half-sentences much of the time. While that’s effective at maintaining the mystery throughout the beginning, the vagueness overstays its welcome, leaving more questions than answers by the end — even after playing it entirely a few times through and seeing different paths. Some reactions, especially as things get weirder, seemed off as well. You’d think hallways disappearing and altars materialising from nowhere would warrant a well-deserved freak-out, but some of these folks can remain strangely calm in the face of supernatural occurrences. Additionally, with such a wide cast, it’s unfortunate we don’t get to delve too deep into their characters, but I’m inclined to give that more of a pass, as the main attraction of this game is in the title: Frank Stone. With every run, I was able to discover more about him, chilling details and all. Though absent from several scenes, the undercurrent of his presence was there all throughout.

As it goes with Supermassive’s interactive cinematic games, who lives and who dies by the end comes down to your decisions along the way. The number of paths you can take feels vast, and the consequences aren’t always readily apparent; in my first couple of playthroughs, I had plenty of “oh no” moments, realising a (seemingly) minor decision I made a couple of scenes ago led to a character’s death or other poor outcomes. Other times, my choice’s grisly result was instant, leaving me jaw-dropped as I processed that I was down yet another body. I somehow ended my initial playthrough at the eight-hour mark (on the lowest difficult, mind you) with no survivors, not one.

Then, I was introduced to my favourite feature — and somewhat the bane of my existence — the Cutting Room Floor. I love this thing. It’s a chart and timeline, showing you all the paths you took, hidden branches you missed, and discoveries available in certain scenes. It’s fun seeing the impact of my choices, how they build off one another, and how many other ways a moment could’ve gone. Some decisions it marks do seem inconsequential, as I’m not sure how they influenced the overall ending I arrived at, but it’s still pretty enticing to see the paths I didn’t take or don’t know how to take. The Cutting Room Floor thankfully gives you access to jump into the game at various checkpoints and major decisions, so you don’t have to start from the beginning. Even so, you’ll still have to go through a lot of unskippable dialogue, which does get redundant after a few playthroughs.

Sometimes I feel like the Pepe Silvia meme, you know, the one that shows up in every TV show or game’s subreddit when theories get wild. That’s me trying to figure out which decisions I have to make in order to uncover what’s behind the chart’s foggy question marks, especially when I’ve seemingly made all the choices I could. Needless to say, you won’t experience the game fully through one playthrough. I’ve put in over 20 hours at this point, and there’s still a handful of endings and deaths I haven’t seen. But as I collect more ends, I’m not sure the differences are worth the effort. In the ones I’ve seen, it seems like there’s very little you can change about the ending aside from who arrives there. However, with Frank Stone being connected to DBD, that limitation does make sense, as the story must work with pre-established lore.

The horrors you face in The Casting of Frank Stone are creepy and gruesome, but facing them isn’t all that scary. In some scenes, you are being pursued by an enemy, which feels eerie no matter what, but you’re technically armed — with an old-school 8mm camera, that is. Through the lens, you can see the monster and then shoot it temporarily out of existence, which only requires holding down a key once it’s in your view. Overall, it’s a simple mechanic and the encounters are over rather quickly. QTEs, on the other hand, induced more tension (though minor) during my first playthrough, as I was still getting a feel for the DBD-style skill checks that have you time your key press when a moving pointer crosses into a dial’s success zone. Most of my unintentional character deaths were failed skill checks, but I enjoyed the challenge and definitely got better at them with time.

Outside of cutscenes, Frank Stone offers some light exploration, which usually places one of two obstacles in your way, whether it be a lack of power or a puzzle that needs solving. The power problem is always solved by repairing a generator, which is a nice nod to the survivors’ main task in DBD. Most of the time, the puzzles felt more like filler with easy solutions and a bit of back-and-forth running to get items or flip switches. I didn’t mind the lack of difficulty for the most part, as they served as a nice reprieve from some tense encounters and often led to other discoveries, such as notable books and items that flesh out the story. Beyond those few things, though, there was little to interact with; locked doors and empty halls ultimately felt more abundant.

Perhaps you’re looking for a game to usher in the spooky season with good replayability and plenty of branching choices. In that case, The Casting of Frank Stone is easy to recommend, especially if you already enjoy this style of interactive cinematic experience. As someone who hasn’t played Dead by Daylight, I found Frank Stone as easy to get into as every other Supermassive title, though its script does feel less polished than that of Until Dawn or The Quarry. That said, if you’re like me, you’ll finish your first playthrough and then promptly pull up the most recent lore deep dive you can find on YouTube. Then, you’ll wonder how you’ll fit DBD into your library's neverending list of games. The jump from a choice-based, movie-like title to an asymmetrical co-op horror game is quite a leap, but if Frank Stone hooked you in, you’ll be hungry for more lore the same way the Entity is voracious for terror.