The Casting of Frank Stone is a horror story told in Supermassive’s distinct style. You may be familiar with their other horror games, Until Dawn and The Quarry, or their horror series The Dark Pictures Anthology. If so, you’ve got at least an inkling of what you’re in for here. This is essentially an interactive movie where your choices influence the outcome of the story and who survives…and who doesn’t. Choice is a huge part of this interactive cinema approach to gaming and The Casting of Frank Stone is no exception.
You’ll play several main characters in the game, and much like traditional horror movies, the supporting cast is just as integral to the plot and experience as the main characters. This isn’t your average game though, as the narrative weave will take you through three different eras, 1963, 1980, and 2024, though the primary focus is on the latter two years. In those years, you’ll play multiple characters, watching events unfold from a variety of perspectives and slowly creating the world that supports the horror you are about to face. There’s no question that The Casting of Frank Stone is noticeably graphic and can be even more so depending on your choices.
In short, what you decide to do and your interactions have direct consequences that end up with people dead. Trying to save everyone from their fates is a challenge all its own and a hallmark of the Supermassive recipe. Most of these choices are binary ones with you deciding how to respond by moving the right stick to your preferred selection. Each selection creates a branch in the complex narrative that look like a chaotic spider web. Looks is the correct term here too because The Casting of Frank Stone features a function called the Cutting Room Floor. This menu system allows you to revisit key decision points and change your mind, branching the narrative in new directions. There are two versions of the game available to players, the Standard Edition where the Cutting Room Floor is only available once you complete the game and the Deluxe Edition where the Cutting Room Floor is available right from the beginning. While it’s great that the mode is included in both versions, buyers of the Deluxe will definitely have an easier time fully completing the game with earlier access.
Decision branches aren’t just binary choices though. You’ll also be forced into a variety of quick time events. No, don’t stop reading now. These aren’t the old school QTEs that everyone hates. Well, mostly they aren’t. In The Casting Of Frank Stone you’ll have X button QTEs where you have to hit the button enough times before the timer runs out to succeed. These aren’t particularly difficult but they might be for some players so Supermassive has thoughtfully put in accessibility options for players who just want to experience story, allowing for holding buttons, removing timers, and other handy QTE-limiting options. That’s good because the other QTE challenges require you to hit the A button within a rapidly spinning dial and they are much faster and more challenging. They also pop up unexpectedly, occasionally leaving you to struggle through or even potentially lose a character abruptly.
With regard to the A button QTEs, the most irritating ones are also fan service, with a variety of generators strewn throughout the game which require parts to fix and then A button QTEs to repair. This is a clear nod to the survivor tasks in Dead By Daylight and one that’s appreciated, even if it feels a little unrealistic that this many people have a mechanical working knowledge of generator technology from various eras and can magically install gears, distributors, and other parts in them without tools. Suspension of disbelief is part and parcel with horror games though and that’s definitely not the weirdest thing you’ll encounter in The Casting of Frank Stone.
There’s a huge supernatural element at work here too and you never know who might be a part of it. Things are clearly not quite as they seem and with the focus on supernatural killers slaughtering survivors in Dead By Daylight, you have more than an inkling of what’s coming. With video camera in hand, you’ll brave some pretty nasty events and maybe, just maybe, save the day as well. It takes a while for things to get really moving though, so don’t expect the game to lean in hard right away. There are 14 chapters in the game and many of them are there to set the stage and build the narrative, slowing down the plot and making you assess each item of information as you learn it.
After the first chapter, the pacing is slower and then builds bit by bit as you get to know the characters. That’s one of the key strategies in this type of horror game, getting to know everyone and start to build emotional ties to them. It’s something that The Casting of Frank Stone manages to do intermittently but never quite pulls off. While you know the characters and you’re interested in what happens to them, you never quite develop that bond that would create a stronger impact when they inevitably die. The horror is there but it feels like it’s at arm’s length most of the time and on default difficulty, your choices have more impact than the QTE horror and you never really feel challenged. That struggle to survive and fear of what’s around the next corner never really materializes in the game and there are a couple good reasons for that.
First, The Casting of Frank Stone has some pretty unlikeable cast members. Not everyone of course, but it’s hard to really care about some of the people you’re dealing with, even some that aren’t supposed to be unlikeable. That creates a bit of a player barrier whether it’s intentional or not. Then there are the collectibles. One of the ways to expand mythos further in this style of game is to leave items and data around that help you to learn more about what’s going on. It’s an effective plot device so that you can avoid long exposition and boring scenes but at the same time it can really bog down actual gameplay. That’s what happens in The Casting of Frank Stone. There are a number of items to find strewn throughout the game (54 of them in total, 12 Trinkets, 12 Relliks and 30 Artifacts).
Relliks are dolls based on the killers from the Dead By Daylight series, creepy and weird and generally not all that hidden. Artifacts are related to the overall narrative, giving a more complete picture of what’s going on in The Casting of Frank Stone and not at all related to the source material. To give you an idea of how easy these items are to find, in our first playthrough we found all 12 Relliks, 29 of the Artifacts, and 8 of the Trinkets. That was a fairly through search though, and brings us to the next point, pacing. It’s hard not to start searching for all the hidden items in the game, especially when they’re highlighted so clearly in the dark environments. But as the chapters progress, it takes more and more searching to find each item and the search slows down the pacing of the plot. Interaction points that progress the story are clear with an Arrow next to the A button icon, so you can rest easy and search knowing that you aren’t going to accidentally trigger the story to move on. At the same time, by doing so, you inadvertently slow the story, limit the tension being built, and remove the impact of various events. It’s a bit of a Catch-22, allowing for players to divert from the narrative to find more backstory and honestly, you’d probably be better off leaving the item hunting for a later playthrough if you can resist. Some items are definitely necessary though and it’s hard to tell which ones, making both approaches challenging.
Of course, the whole time you’re playing through The Casting of Frank Stone you’re going to be wowed by the visual design. This is a dark game so turn the brightness up a bit higher than recommended or you’re going to miss out, but every area from the town to the mill to the mansion are all incredibly designed with fantastic levels of detail. On the Series X, there are occasional texture drops and a bit of stuttering here and there, but with number of interaction points, that’s hardly a surprise. When these do happen, they are minimal and fast and only a few times during a run were there texture dropouts of more than a quick flicker here and there (although a couple of hands and arms disappeared here and there for a few seconds). Considering the motion capture and facial designs, that’s pretty darn impressive. Everything looks suitably real and only occasionally in the mid-ground areas do faces look less realistic (aside from teeth which could definitely have used some work). This is a gorgeous game from a design standpoint and the technical aspects and slight stutters do not detract from it.
Audio is similarly well done with excellent echo work and background sounds. It’s easy to use sound to orient yourself in the game and there are plenty of auditory clues sprinkled throughout. Voice work is outstanding and the game sounds like a feature film, the characters slowly building in realism as you play thanks to the solid voice acting. Music definitely takes a back stage to the dialogue here but when you notice it, the tracks are suitably creepy and atmospheric, building tension as any good horror experience should. As you get used to the visual and sound design though, you’ll find that you can use the audio cues to avoid advancing the story while you search for Relliks and Artifacts, so that quality sound work also contributes a bit to the pacing issues in the game.
There are a couple of issues with the game, notable the aforementioned pacing, but it’s hard to work your way around it without taking agency away from the player. This is more of a general issue with this approach to game design and definitely not a commentary on the quality of The Casting of Frank Stone as the game provides you with ample choice to speed up or slow down the story based on your preferences. The other issue was collision detection, which often takes away from the movement of the storyline. There were numerous areas where characters got stuck in seemingly innocuous corners and areas where they shouldn’t have and then the game would take a moment to correct and move back on. Exploring areas at slow speeds seemed to make this happen more often and it could be frustrating to move where you wanted to in some rooms.
However, The Casting of Frank Stone more than makes up for that issue with its accessibility options and the Cutting Room Floor, as well as the fan service that creeps into the game more and more as you work your way towards the climax of the game. Being able to cruise through or struggle to survive is awesome and having access to the entire range of options in each area is great to give you an idea of how complex the narrative is. Hardcore Dead By Daylight fans are going to want to experience every option available, but as of the writing of this article, only 0.11% of players have seen every permutation in the game and that number is not going to rise fast. This is a remarkably complex game with subtly branching pathways at nearly every step, affecting how the minutia of the story plays out.
On top of that there’s an entire second multiplayer mode to the game which allows you to play couch co-op with friends, passing the controller back and forth. This is a unique group method to experience a game that Supermassive has put in their games previously. While we didn’t test it out for this review, in other games it has worked exceedingly well and been a delightful group experience, creating a sense of camaraderie with friends and shared highs and lows of gameplay successes and failures. If you have the option, you should definitely try the co-op mode, both to shake things up a bit and to try something new and very much unlike other games out there.
While it doesn’t quite manage to instill as much abject terror and tension as other games of its genre, The Casting of Frank Stone is an excellent story in its own right with a complex narrative and a bit more going on than you might expect in the story department. The game makes players think as well as run for their lives and has excellent presentation and style throughout with a creative flair that’s uncommon even in large budget games. This is clearly a labor of love that will heavily appeal to Dead By Daylight players even if the game style is remarkably divergent from that game but for those of us that don’t play Dead By Daylight, the game is still both engrossing and interesting and players absolutely do not need to be familiar with the source material to enjoy the game. The Deluxe version $49.99 and gives you immediate access to the Cutting Room Floor along with 8 character costumes and a variety of Frank Stone bonus content in your Dead By Daylight account. The Standard edition is $39.99 and doesn’t come with any costumes or extra content, but the whole game is there and unlockable once you finish your first playthrough (as well as a nice completion surprise). Either version is well worth your time and money and while an initial playthrough of the game can be as short as 6 hours, there’s a lot of high quality content there that will make The Casting of Frank Stone a must-own for horror connoisseurs and Dead By Daylight fans alike.
This review is based on a digital copy of The Casting of Frank Stone Deluxe Edition provided by the publisher. It was played on an Xbox Series X system using a 1080p Sony TV. The Casting of Frank Stone is also available on PS5 and on PC via Steam and Epic.
Nate Van Lindt has been a gamer since the days of yore (aka Commodore 64), and has played a bit of virtually everything out there. He's also an avid comic book collector, both vintage and current, and reads a fair amount of sci-fi and fantasy. On top of that, he watches a fair number of movies and TV shows as well. Oh, and he has a family, a full-time job, and lives somewhere in the urban wilds of Southwestern Ontario, Canada, foraging for old video cables and forgotten game soundtracks.