I’ve talked in the past on both the podcast and in blog posts that I really enjoy the game Dead by Daylight! It’s one of, if not the only, live service game that I continue to come back to, even if I take long breaks between playing here and there. It’s a fun game that is run by people who seem to care quite a bit about their game and their community, and as a result that community and game has only continued to grow over the 8 years it’s been going on. And recently, the game has grown big enough to finally be getting some exciting spin offs!

The first big news that Dead by Daylight was expanding came with the announcement that an official movie was entering production! This announcement came March 2nd, 2023 and was very exciting to hear about. With all the different horror movies the game had crossed over with it was cool to hear that Dead by Daylight would be getting a movie for itself. However, things didn’t stop there as just two months later in May it was announced that Dead by Daylight would be getting two spin off games! The first of which was going to be a narrative focused single player game from Supermassive Games, the developers best known for making Until Dawn, another narrative focused single player game. And later that year said game was revealed as The Casting of Frank Stone, a story about four amateur film makers shooting a horror movie when a killer, Frank Stone, shows up and suddenly the horror becomes real! And this is the game we’ll be talking about today.

Quick side note, that other spin off game, which was going to be a four player coop game set in the world of Dead by Daylight called Project T, actually got cancelled in the middle of me writing this! Sad news given I was actually more excited for it than The Casting of Frank Stone…

As stated before, The Casting of Frank Stone is a narrative based game that is very similar to Supermassive’s other games. Meaning it’s less of a game and more of an interactive movie where your choices affect the story in major ways. And right off the bat I’m just going to say that I am normally not interested in these kinds of games. I am someone who loves to know what each choice I make leads to. For example, in Baldur’s Gate 3 I always made sure to save before every big choice so I could reload that save and see what each choice lead to. This sort of thing isn’t an option in Supermassive’s games because they want your choices to always matter, even if you feel cheated by said choice. Which isn’t really a bad thing, I totally understand why their games are designed like this. But that is still why I tend to avoid their games. However, I am a big fan of Dead by Daylight and not only was I interested in checking this game because of that, I also wanted to support the series. Plus maybe it would be able to get me into more narrative focused games like this! Or that was the hope.

Sadly… The Casting of Frank Stone isn’t very good. And not just because I don’t like these choice focused games!

Now before we get into this review proper I’m going to layout how I’ll be doing this review. I’m going to start with talking about the game play before moving on to the story, and the story section is going to have spoilers. I normally tend to try and avoid spoilers in my reviews but given that the story is arguably the biggest part of this game I’m going to have to talk about all of it. But before we get to that, let’s talk about that game play!

The game play of The Casting of Frank Stone is basically split into two sections. You will have sections where you will be able to walk around and do a bit of lite exploring before moving on and then you have the main bit of game play, the choices.

When I called Supermassive’s games interactive movies before that wasn’t completely true. You do get to do some exploring and what you can find in these sections can affect the rest of the game overall. But even then, the real meat of their games comes from the choices you make in the cutscenes and The Casting of Frank Stone in no different. Now as I said before, I haven’t played any of Supermassive’s other games. The closest I’ve gotten is watching a couple play throughs of Until Dawn. I bring this up because I don’t really know how many of the game play elements in The Casting of Frank Stone come from their other games, so I may give credit to this game for doing something that is actually pretty common for the rest of Supermassive’s games. So… Sorry in advance if I do that!

Getting back on track, these walking around and exploring sections are mainly there for a bit of variety and finding collectibles. There are a few times where you have direct control like this during a tense moment in the game but it’s very rare. Also while you are technically exploring, you’re mostly just walking down a linear path with a few little side areas to check out and those side areas tend to just have some collectibles. Which, to be fair, I actually really enjoyed the collectibles! Most of them being fun references to Dead by Daylight and its Killers. However some of these references do go a bit too far but I’ll bring that up later when talking about the story. Another bit of praise I will give the game though is the fact that they make it very clear when you are moving on to a new section. When games have areas for you to explore and find extra things I always get annoyed when they don’t make it clear when you’ll be moving on and be locked out of exploring the current area. The Casting of Frank Stone makes it very clear when what you’re about to do will advance the story. And they do this by having a different prompt when interacting with something. In this case they have you hold the X button rather than simply press it as you normally would. Kind of a minor thing overall, but something I really would like other games to do with their exploration sections!

Beyond these sections all you will be doing is making choices in cutscenes, which may sound boring but these choices do feel like they affect things! Now not all of the choices you make will cause a ripple effect and come to haunt you later, but the game does a decent job making it feel like each choice does matter. You are usually only given two choices but sometimes a third will present itself if you managed to uncover something with previous dialog options or finding something when you were exploring. These choices generally just get you more information for some of the minor choices. When it comes to the big, story changing choices you are only ever given two choices and these choices are usually timed! These are the kinds of choices that will usually result in a character living or dying and these seems to be what people play these kinds of games for. As someone who does like to get the ‘best’ outcome though, these choices that can get a character killed just because I picked one wrong choice always rub me the wrong way, especially since it makes all my other choices before hand feel like they mean nothing. However, I do understand that these games are meant to be replayed multiple times to get different outcomes. And that’s completely understandable! But that’s also why I in particular haven’t picked up one of these games before. And if someone is like me thinking about picking up this game because it’s related to Dead by Daylight, they should know that these cheap choices are still very much in the game.

In terms of game play that basically covers everything. The game does have some quick time events though that it frames as Skill Checks, a mechanic from Dead by Daylight! It plays the same animation and does the same sound affect and everything. Though oddly, at least when playing with a controller, they don’t use the same button you use when you’re playing Dead by Daylight. For some reason you have to hit X in The Casting of Frank Stone while you normally would hit L1 in Dead by Daylight. This isn’t that big of a deal but it just struck me as odd given how far they went to make this like Dead by Daylight. Also there was a noticeable input delay when doing Skill Checks, which is a problem since they can result in people dying. Which is actually how I had one character in particular die as I was watching the cutscene like normal before suddenly Skill Check! _{Thankfully this character was kind of an asshole so I didn’t really care, but still!}

And after that, we really have covered all the main bits of game play! While that probably sounds very lacking, do keep in mind that this is not only a short game but a narrative based one too meaning those choices do a lot of the heavy lifting when it comes to the game play. It’s kind of like trying to complain about the lack of game play in a visual novel. You really shouldn’t have been expecting much to begin with! With that in mind though, this means that a lot of the game’s value comes down it its story. So, is it a good story? …Not really, no. It’s actually pretty bad, if I’m being honest.

And this is where I’m putting the spoiler warning! If you don’t want to be spoiled on the story and play the game for yourself go ahead and skip all this! I’ll put a notice down below on when the spoilers end and where I’ll give my final thoughts so scroll down to that if you want to read those. But now, it’s time to talk about the crazy story of The Casting of Frank Stone.

SPOILERS START NOW

So when this game was first revealed showing off the four main characters and the killer, I figured that the story would be kind of like a dramatization of a regular match in Dead by Daylight. The four survivors are trapped and being hunted and need to escape while the killer chases them, that sort of thing! I honestly feel like that would have been a really fun idea and give plenty of chances to make references to the main game. It was then later revealed that the game would take place in the real world not the world of the Entity, the godly Eldritch being that runs the world of Dead by Daylight, and the story would revolve around someone trying to summon the Entity to our world. This I was still fine with! Mainly because it fit perfectly into what I had in mind, now just with the added part that Frank Stone, the killer, would be trying to summon the Entity by recreating a match, or Trial as they are called in game, from the main game. Kind of like he was trying to show the Entity that he was worthy of being a killer! Sadly though, this would not be the case. Instead, we get an insanely convoluted story that goes way over the top and adds way too many details…

The idea of summoning the Entity to our world in order to have it grab a worthy killer is the main plot of The Casting of Frank Stone with Frank Stone himself being that killer. However, this scheme is not thought up by Frank himself. Instead another character, who is revealed right off the bat to be the main villain, named Augustine Lieber is the one orchestrating things. It is shown that Augustine has seemingly been studying the Entity for a long time and has made it her sole goal in life to make a killer worthy of the Entity and to get rewarded for it and she believes that Frank Stone is the man for the job! After this brief introduction the story proper starts with us playing as police officer Sam Green in 1963 where he is investigating the kidnapping of a baby in the town of Cedar Hills. This leads him to the local Steel Mill where Frank Stone works and where Augustine has been having him kill and incinerate people. It seems her plan was to make Frank into a serial killer, give him a unique look, and hope that is enough for the Entity. However, this plan is stopped when Sam manages to show up in the nick of time, killing Frank Stone.

Now here’s where explaining this story is going to be a bit tricky. I will admit, I only played through the game completely once so I only really know what happens on my one play through. I did stop part way through and start a new save to redo one choice but beyond that, I only had one play through. So, some of the things I cover might not be what happens in someone else’s play through depending on their choices. For instance, I had Sam stop Frank before he killed the baby. I believe this is the only major thing that can change here since Frank dying is pretty important to the story. With this in mind though, I’m going to try and stick to covering the more broad story moments that I assume are going to be in most play throughs, but do keep in mind that things might be different if you played it and made other choices.

Anyways! After that we actually jump from 1963 all the way to 2024! And this is when I realized this story might be going a little off the rails. We are now playing as Madi who is off to a mansion after being invited there by someone offering to help her nightmares go away. This person is quickly revealed to be Augustine! Seems her plan to make Frank the perfect killer wasn’t completely ruined. She is now looking to get a completed version of the film Murder Mill which is why she invited Madi as well as two other people, Linda and Stan, over to buy their pieces of the film so she can have a full copy of it. After all this is introduced we jump to another time again but this time backwards to 1980!

Now this is the main part of the game that was shown in trailers and what not, this is when those four teens wanting to make a horror movie show up. We start with meeting Jaime, Chris, and Linda. The same Linda we also met in 2024! Seems she was the camera woman for what would become the infamous Murder Mill film. We meet our fourth teen sometime later. For now, the trio is filming their final scene in the Steel Mill, that is now completely shut down, only for Sam Green to come in and break up the fun! Seems after he took down Frank he got promote to Sheriff and now he keeps a close eye on the mill. He ends up startling Linda causing her to drop and break their camera. After leaving the Steel Mill, the three go back to Jaime’s house to figure out what to do next which is where we’re introduced to his older sister Bonnie, who looks an awful lot like Madi… From here the three go off to find a way to fix their camera and end up going to a curiosity shop. Said shop has a lot of fun little references to Dead by Daylight littered all through out it! From the Wraith’s weapon to the Legion’s pin and even the Huntress’ mask which plays her humming when you pick it up.

These fun references aren’t why they are here though. The trio is here in the hopes the old woman running the shop can fix or replace their busted camera. And lucky for them, she has the perfect replacement! After buying the camera, Chris goes to the pharmacy to get some milk which is where we run into our fourth teen, Robbie! Who is actually Sam Green’s son and he promises he has a way back into the Steel Mill his dad doesn’t know about. After this, it is also revealed that Augustine was the woman running the curiosity shop. Now, it’s not clear if she like, put on make up to look like an old woman, because she looks way young in 2024, but we’ll get into how dumb this is later. For now, all we need to know is that she very purposefully gave the kids that particular camera.

Fast forwarding a little, after doing some more research on Frank Stone, as Chris has now become obsessed with learning more about him and the killings, they follow Robbie, get into the Steel Mill again and shoot their last scene! Well almost. They end up shooting one more scene that they just happen to shoot in the incinerator room where Frank died. Jaime and Bonnie, oh right Bonnie followed them because she was bored so now she is here, have an argument and Bonnie and Linda split up from the group to help her cool off a little. When they do, the other three notice something weird with the camera. They seem to see these weird particles that float into the camera whenever you film them. Particles that can only be seen when looking through the camera. After being weirded out by that, they decide to explore more and find themselves in the place Frank mainly did his work when he worked at the Steel Mill. Jaime, Chris, and Robbie argue a little because Jaime is jealous Chris and Robbie are getting so close, Chris and Jamie are dating by the way, and I’m glossing over this because it seriously does not matter like at all! Maybe this drama between them gets resolved with some different choices but for me it was just some rather annoying padding because there was no payoff.

Anyways! They find a bunch of cut up bodies that the police didn’t find so Robbie finally caves and goes to find his father despite how much trouble they will all be in when Sam finds out they came back to the Steel Mill. Chris and Jaime bicker a bit more about their relationship in front of these body parts and then Frank Stone reappears! Yup. Just like that. He’s a weird ghost now too. And just as suddenly a portal opens up to swallow Chris! This all happens in the span of like two minutes by the way. Now you can have Jaime either run away or try and confront the spooky ghost Frank in order to help Chris and this is the choice I started my play through over for. I picked to have him confront Frank. But it turns out “confronting” means standing still and getting cut in half. So I replayed through the game, got back here, and had him run away making sure he lived. You see why I get upset about a game that says all my choices matter only to have this one choice decide whether a character lives or dies?

Jumping back to 2024, Stan, Linda, and Madi are starting to feel like something is up with Augustine. The three then decide to explore around the mansion a bit because Augustine left them alone for a long while. They find more Dead by Daylight references, which are feeling less like cute references and more like they are meant to be a part of the story which doesn’t make sense but whatever! During all this, while checking out Augustine’s private collection of stuff, Sam Green suddenly appears! And it seems he knows what’s really going on with Augustine… However, for whatever reason, he refuses to tell anyone. This results in everyone thinking he’s really weird and crazy because he keeps saying crazy things without explaining. And bizarrely he still expects everyone to go along and help him with stopping Augustine, while also never saying why they need to stop her or what she is planning to do.

From here the story mainly sticks with what’s going on in 2024 instead of going back to the Steel Mill in 1980 for awhile. We do go back to the Steel Mill a bit every so often, but it’s going to be awhile until anything important happens there. The main thing that happens during all this is that Linda figures out they can stop ghost Frank by filming him! This seems to like, absorb Frank into the camera or something, just like with those particles they found before. Linda, Bonnie, and Jaime split up with Linda somehow going in a complete circle and ending up back in the incinerator room. But that’s where things stay for awhile as we focus on the mansion in 2024.

So, after Sam shows back up he tries to beat up Stan. This is because Stan is honestly an asshole. He’s very smarmy and is a complete con artist. Sam is particularly mad because he tricked a sick and dying Robbie into giving him his part of Murder Mill. Yeah, Robbie just dies off screen despite being a part of the main cast which feels really weird. After this, Stan storms off and Madi goes looking for him. While doing that, Madi finds a weird ritualistic magic room with what seems to be a coffin cage thing in the middle with someone inside. After doing some quick puzzle solving, Madi opens the coffin thing and out pops Chris! Yes, that Chris. The same Chris from 1980. You see, when Chris got sucked into that random portal that seemed to open up for literally no reason, she got sent to the future. Which means that this story now has time travel… But don’t worry! It’s about to get even more convoluted somehow.

Going back to Linda and Sam, still in 2024, they go off looking for Madi and Stan and this is when Linda starts calling Sam out for being weird and for being so young. You see, Sam looks the exact same age he did in 1980, he honestly looks younger than Linda does! And of course, Sam refuses to explain that and just keeps saying they need to stop Augustine. While they continue to search though, Linda finds a room full of film reels, specially film reels for Murder Mill! They all have different labels though, like they are all different versions or something despite the fact that there shouldn’t even be one version given the whole point of Augustine inviting everyone here was to get their pieces of the film reel. Grabbing one of these Murder Mill reels and giving it a brief watch, Linda quickly realizes this isn’t the film she made with her friends. It was somehow slightly different. This is then when the game reveals that Augustine has been jumping around multiple universes! All in an attempt to find the perfect Frank Stone and make him the perfect killer. Because this plot really needed that!

This is where the story completely lost me. I just had zero interest in any of this anymore because things have gotten too ridiculous. It had officially jumped the shark. This is also how they explain why she looked so old back when she was running the curiosity shop. This was either her changing her appearance, her from another timeline, or her from another universe. Speaking of the 1980 timeline, let’s hop back to that. I say that because in the 2024 timeline Augustine managed to somehow grab everyone’s piece of the film without them noticing and now she was going to play it all for them as she finally has her perfect film for making the perfect Frank for the Entity.

So! Back in the incinerator room, Frank Stone shows up, grabs Bonnie, who is Madi’s mom by the way that’s why the look so similar, and kills her… Which makes no sense. Even Linda in 2024 says that this didn’t happen in her film and we know she isn’t lying because Madi exists! And last I checked you kind of need to be alive to have a kid! And since Madi isn’t 44, she was clearly born after 1980. I bring this up because it’s kind of a major plot hole. Like, if Augustine needed this universe’s version of the film, why isn’t the movie the same? And if she didn’t need this universe’s version of the film, why go through the effort of collecting them from this universe?! Normally I don’t bring this stuff up in my reviews but given how much of this game is focused on its story, it’s kind of important!

Anyways! Back to 1980, Sam Green shows up at the Steel Mill finds Bonnie dead and finds the camera that can stop Frank. He then follows Frank who chased Jaime and Linda into the underground sewer area and saves them both while seemingly trapping Frank into the film reel, which is why Augustine needs the reel to begin with. Playing it will apparently release ghost Frank again.

Back in 2024, Frank starts to come out of the movie but for some reason now he like needs a physical body, despite the fact he seemed pretty lethal without one in 1980…? Whatever. He grabs and absorbs Sam taking his body I guess and now he can exist in the world again. Everyone who is still alive scatters while Augustine heads out to meet the Entity who has finally come to grab Frank and give her her reward. Expect, surprise! The Entity kills her. Which apparently she didn’t see coming. I honestly assumed this was the reward she was talking about, getting to be eaten by the Entity since she seemed pretty crazy already, you know? I figured that like being one with the Entity by getting killed by it was what she wanted. But no, she’s shocked when Frank attacks her and the Entity eats her. From here we play as, assuming you’ve kept her alive til now, Madi as she wonders through the woods, seeing some random flashbacks of Sam ripping apart the film reel and giving a piece to Jaime, Linda, and Robbie, only to find her way to a camp fire with the others you managed to keep alive in 2024. Madi is shocked to find how relaxed everyone seems and even to see some people she doesn’t recognize. Linda tells her to calm down because as there are now four of them here, “It can begin.” And with Frank in the distance looming over, watching them, this means they are about to start a Trial! Meaning Entity swallowed up not only Frank but everyone else too as they are now in the world of Dead by Daylight. And if I’m being totally honest… I do like that ending! Especially since it mimics the main screen of Dead by Daylight!

Overall though, this story was bad.

I was hoping for a really simple story about four teens trying to survive against a crazy killer. What I got was an insane story about a woman time traveling and universe hopping that barely makes any sense and had me so happy to be done.

While my upset feelings may partly be from the fact that I don’t particularly like these choice based games I really do think it comes down to the story in the end. And specifically Augustine as a character. She is kind of cool when you look at her from a lore perspective but she just ruins the story of the game. I feel like having Frank be the one to know about the Entity and want to bring them to this world not only makes Frank way more interesting but it also cuts out all of the needless time hopping and universe shifting that does nothing for the story besides give it an annoying twist that doesn’t feel earned in the slightest. Not only that, if you think about how Augustine has been going about making Frank this special killer in all these universes, she comes off as a massive idiot. Like, if Sam Green killing Frank was such a blow to the plan, why didn’t Augustine try and stop Sam in any of these universes? Because she talks about how Sam ruined her plan but each universe had it’s own version of the film that will bring Frank back meaning someone always stops and kills Frank and a movie is always made. You might say that her plan all along was to make Frank into a ghost, have him get trapped in the film, and then bring him out but then why did she say that Sam ruined her plan?! If anything, Sam should be a key part of her plan. But then that begs the question of why didn’t any other universe having a workable version of the film if the film always gets made and Frank gets trapped inside? Because it’s not like the film will get made if all the people making it are killed so they clearly stop Frank each time by using the camera and-

You know what, I got to stop there. I could go much, much deeper into how flawed and stupid Augustine is and how she just brings down the plot but I’m going to move on since this review is long enough and I feel like I’m going to go crazy if I try to point out all the things wrong with the plot.

END OF SPOILERS

In the end, I cannot say I had a good time with The Casting of Frank Stone. If the game had nothing to do with Dead by Daylight I not only would not have picked it up but I wouldn’t have enjoyed it even a little bit given it would lack the fun references that I will admit are pretty cute and fun for a fan of Dead by Daylight like myself. Is this game completely awful? Not really, I suppose. I could imagine having some fun if I played my first play through with friends as we all try to make decisions and keep everyone alive. And like I said the Dead by Daylight references are fun. And to give credit where it’s due, I do think the game is very well acted! The actress for Linda specially did an awesome job. But at the end of the day I cannot recommend this game even to Dead by Daylight fans. Maybe if you can find it for super cheap but I had way more fun with the official parody Dating SIM game Hooked on You surprisingly enough. Despite being a very budget little parody game poking fun at the fact that a big part of the Dead by Daylight community has the hots for these crazy killers, it was way more fun to play through! And actually had a story that made sense…

So unless you’re a big Dead by Daylight fan with some time and money on your hands I would not pick up The Casting of Frank Stone. The story is all over the place, the characters hardly feel deep, and the game play isn’t much to write home about either. And I didn’t even mention the game is littered with bugs! One of which reset my save file making me start all the way at the beginning again. Thankfully the game is pretty short, but still! A game should never ship with a bug like that.

I’m honestly pretty upset that I didn’t enjoy this game more, I was kind of hoping that it would get me to try some of Supermassive’s other narrative based games. But no, I’m going to keep avoiding them just like you should probably avoid this game. Here’s hoping Frank Stone is at least fun to play when he is inevitably added to the main game of Dead by Daylight.

But those are just my thoughts! What are some of yours? Do you enjoy these kinds of narrative based games? Are you planning on trying The Casting of Frank Stone even after this negative review? I’d love to hear your thoughts so don’t be shy!

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