‘The Casting of Frank Stone’ : A New Horror Classic or a Missed Opportunity?

As both a Supermassive Games as well as Dead By Daylight fan, The Casting of Frank Stone was one of my most anticipated games of the year. The combination of Supermassive’s storytelling and Dead By Daylight‘s lore seemed like a perfect pairing.

Unfortunately…the blend didn’t turn out as I hoped.

From a storytelling standpoint, the game front loads the majority of the “mystery” that you are trying to unravel. It puts you in a perspective where the characters in the game are trying to answer questions that you, the player, already know the answers to, thus removing the excitement of discovery along the way.

Another tension killer that The Casting of Frank Stone is guilty of, is bouncing between different timelines. You already know certain characters can’t die in the past sequences because they are still alive in the modern sections of the game. The appeal of Supermassive’s other games done in this style, is the fact that any wrong decision or failed quick time event can lead to a character’s death, with the game continuing on without them. In the case of Frank Stone, that’s partially eliminated.

Rounding out the issues with storytelling is an over reliance on easter eggs and references to Dead By Daylight that do nothing to further the story of the game itself. It replaces the extra lore and clues that you could find in other Supermassive games and weakens the overall story within the game.

From a gameplay standpoint, unfortunately The Casting of Frank Stone doesn’t fare any better. A skill check system similar to the one used in Dead By Daylight replaces the way Supermassive normally handles quick time events. While it’s a nice nod to Dead By Daylight, as it is in its universe, it doesn’t feel as natural or immersive as the normal formula.

It’s not all bad though. Some of the characters are quite likeable, and while the first hour to an hour and a half of the game moves at a snails pace (largely I believe because we already know everything we are trying to get the players to discover), it does pick up the pace and becomes quite interesting.

The Casting of Frank Stone does have multiple endings. Unfortunately, with the beginning being a slog to get through on replays and a game breaking bug that can randomly delete all of your saved progress make replayability a tough sell.

I wanted to love this game, unfortunately there’s just too many things that have gone wrong.