The Casting Of Frank Stone review — B-roll blues

In the blazing depths of Cedar Steel Mill, a sadistic killer draws his last breath. Following in the wake of his demise, the residents of Cedar Hills try to move on, but the unbound cruelty of Frank Stone has soaked into the very metal of the mill. Years later, a group of would-be movie makers set their sights on the murderous location, unknowingly unearthing an evil machination spanning dimensions beyond their own.

If you’ve played a Supermassive-developed game before (Until Dawn, The Quarry), you’ll already be familiar with the cinematic-centered gameplay. For the uninitiated, these games tend to lean more towards interactive narrative experiences, with much of the actual gameplay being relegated to choosing dialogue or performing a quick-time event (QTE) during a cutscene. For this gameplay style the narrative really has to pick up the slack or else you risk making a boring game, but thankfully the horror story on offer here was mostly engaging. Sure it still has the symptoms of a slower start, but once I was more immersed into the later chapters, I found myself enjoying the horror story they wanted to tell. The beautiful graphics are also no slouch, and they’re definitely a plus when you’ll be spending so much time in cutscenes.

While I won’t go into too much detail regarding the story, the plot mainly centers around a small group of people making a movie shot at the steel mill where the merciless killer Frank Stone once carved up his victims. The narrative takes place across three different time periods, jumping between 1963, 1980 and 2024, although most of your time will be spent in the latter two eras. I was initially skeptical about this decision, as some characters are present in various years so I figured it would remove all the danger, but without spoilers, The Casting Of Frank Stone did have some tricks up its sleeve to make sure I was on my toes regardless.

Regarding the playable cast, there are only five characters this time around. This is a noticeably smaller number than their previous games, and the time it takes to reach the credits is also much quicker. While the majority of the cast felt like they had an adequate amount of screen time, I couldn’t help but feel like Jaime and Sam could have used some more fleshing out. During a single-player playthrough this could be overlooked, but if you’re playing with friends via couch co-op, you might be annoyed you got stuck with one of these characters. Frank Stone however, has an absolutely killer design and is one of the best monsters they’ve created yet. I only wish they gave him more opportunities to pop up, because whenever he was involved I knew the game was getting good.

The most disappointing problem I had during my time with The Casting Of Frank Stone was just how much of a step backwards this felt in comparison to their previous games. It’s shorter, has fewer characters, and has fewer interactive systems. There’s collectibles to find such as the plushie versions of DBD killers, but they don’t serve any actual purpose unlike the totems in Until dawn or the tarot cards of The Quarry. Sure there’s other gameplay systems like a vague relationship meter between each cast member, but I honestly couldn’t tell you what that changes in the story at all, at least I couldn’t tell during my playthrough. These flawed gameplay systems make even considering multiple playthroughs a drag, which is a big red flag for games like this.

The biggest issue regarding replayability involves The Cutting Room Floor, a sprawling chapter-select that lets you jump back into various parts of the narrative after beating the game. While this initially seems like a great way to go back and nab any collectibles you may have missed or try out new paths to experience different endings, the implementation leaves a lot to be desired. For starters, there is no option in the game to skip dialogue or cutscenes, meaning you’ll have to spend hours re-watching the same scenes over again which sort of defeats a lot of the purpose in my eyes. Not to mention that the game doesn’t track your decisions if you jump between chapters using this feature. What is the point of using the Cutting Room Floor to explore different paths if I’m forced to essentially replay the entire game to feel the effects of a choice later down the line?

It may be overtly obvious to some that The Casting Of Frank Stone is inspired by Dead by Daylight (it says so prominently on the title screen), but what you may not be initially aware of is just how tethered to the IP this game actually is. It goes way beyond just having some Easter eggs and call backs, the world of DBD is grafted directly into the narrative and grotesquely explores the nature of Entity and its victims. This aspect I liked a lot, delving into the cruelty and otherworldly nature of this strange God from another dimension, but I didn’t really care for some of the more shoe-horned aspects that felt a little too on the nose. Sometimes it felt like Supermassive were laying it on way too thick with their homage, leaving the game feeling like “Hey remember THIS from DBD? That’s right, you gotta repair a generator with skill checks!” To me it worked best when they were being more subtle, but if you’re a big fan of DBD there’s a ton of fan service to drink in here. 

But this goes both ways of course, meaning if you’re someone who has never played DBD at all, this game might feel like one big inside-joke that’s missing a punchline. This is exacerbated by the fact that the Deluxe Edition mainly contains bonuses for DBD, only further alienating people who aren’t established fans. Of course you can still enjoy this game without having any background knowledge, but it certainly won’t feel like a full experience. 

See below for our list of partners and affiliates: