Both Supermassive and Behavior have played a major role in defining the genre over the past decade. The former horror game is a cinematic choose-your-own adventure story in which the fate of multiple playable characters depends on your choices, often made in high-pressure situations. At the same time, the latter blazed a trail that is now well known: asymmetrical multiplayer horror. Deadline by Daylight (DBD) does something like Fortress Heroes in annexing many major horror icons into one space, which not only gives it lasting power but also a twisted Disneyland vibe. Now, with the casting of Frank Stone, the two team up to tell a Dead by Daylight origin story that will appeal most to fans of the PvP game, though I can say that as a casual DB. D fan, I found it interesting in its own right despite its problems, but also its merits.
Frank Stone plays a game that looks a lot like Supermassive’s series of games starting with 2015’s Until Dawn. It’s a light-game, movie-like experience in the sense that you’re in direct command. You’ll control multiple characters, develop relationships with others in the story, and most excitingly, try to keep them alive in a story full of Quick-Time Events (QTEs) and doomed choices that will lead to their permanent death.
To me, this formula hasn’t aged well yet, and I’m not sure it ever will. This feels like a game I’ll happily play every fall for the rest of my life, although the narrative merits vary from game to game. Historically, I’ve found that no Supermassive scripts have really stood up to scrutiny, and Frank Stone is no different in that regard. Because of the branching paths, sometimes you might get to a scene that feels a little off, like it fits better with a choice I didn’t make or never saw.
This is an unpleasant flaw common in horror games like Frankenstein, Quarry, and The Dark Pictures Anthology. I would definitely be harsher on them if they were technically movies. However, the interactive elements that make Frank Stone the movie game Rather than being a traditional film helps mask some of its flaws. It’s fun to live among these scary stories. Knowing that I could and would greatly influence the outcome at many moments throughout the game kept me as fascinated by this game as its predecessors. Frank Stone isn’t my favorite guy, but as Supermassive continues its pursuit of the pinnacle of Until Dawn, I welcome the team’s attempts to recreate that magic every year with projects like this.
When I was early on Frank Stone and one of my main characters was killed off, I was shocked, but in a good way. I hope there’s stakes, and even if Frank Stone doesn’t always hold the story beats together as tightly as I’d like, I’m still invested because my fingerprints still seem to be all over the plot. The relationships between the characters evolved under my watch, and I even brought back a couple who were breaking up (only to have one of them promptly cut in half –oops).
In addition to adhering to the difficulty setting’s QTEs – pro tip: play Hard for the most chaotic results – the gameplay consists of many dialogue options, which are almost always binary unless you do it by exploring the world and collecting a lot of collectibles. Unlock more things to say and backstory related to them. This makes scanning nearby tables and corners for book covers, documents, and other hidden items a valuable use of your time, though it does reveal yet again a very video game problem with these Hollywood-beating projects; in the movie, the protagonist is There’s no running along the walls looking for Easter eggs before starting a mission. But like some narrative disconnects, I found these concessions acceptable because enjoying these dark stories to life has done most of the heavy lifting anyway.
Supermassive also has new combat light mechanics built into Frank Stone. Combat is uncommon in its library of games and should probably stay that way, as shallow features ultimately don’t stand out. Throughout the story, the player needs to point an object at the titular monster to stop him, but this is always easy and becomes boring almost immediately.
Frank Stone Worse still are the frequent technical issues, itself a legacy issue. It’s a good-looking game, but it stutters when transitioning between scenes. Not all of them, but too many. This pulled me out of the experience more than some loose narrative thread. I’m not sure what can be done to fix this, but it’s an issue that exists in other games like Supermassive, even if it’s built on a newer version of Unreal.
The issue was too obvious to ignore, which shows that the team saw it and sent it anyway. I find that I’m less concerned about the occasional glitch than most people are, but these kinds of visual flaws are more serious when the game’s main appeal is its cinematic quality.
From a story perspective, “Frank Stone” is, like its source material, a mash-up of different genres. It starts like a horror film and quickly moves into supernatural territory, even throwing in some body horror before the end credits. I love Frank Stone’s own designs, and if you thought his first appearance was aesthetically impressive, just wait, he’s got a lot more to reveal. He and the playable characters in the game all look like they belong in the DBD world, which I found to be indicative of how closely the two teams worked together to stay true to the source code.
Being set in the horror universe of The Act gives the game all the narrative space that that setting brings. For those of you familiar with this knowledge, you probably already know what this means. For starters, there are things about the game that are best left to discover on your own during the second half of the six- to eight-hour story. Either way, Frank Stone’s story is an interesting one.
It helps to understand the DBD universe, and the deeper you get into it, the better you’ll get out of its countless secrets and nods to multiplayer. The main purpose of the game is to reveal the story behind DBD’s Big Bad, The Entity, and the climax of the game will be the most exciting for players who want to know the answers to years of questions on the subject. But even players who are Supermassive enthusiasts or just horror fans looking for something new can view this as a fun gore-fest. Its links to DBD don’t exclude anyone from the experience; they just open some extra windows for players coming from the behavioral world. I found a few nods clever enough to make me laugh out loud. These are outside of the way the game’s QTEs are tweaked to look exactly like DBD’s skill rolls, and while I find them pretty cool I won’t say any more about them.
After beating the game once, you can unlock some popular features if you’re interested in seeing everything the game has to offer. This includes a collectible-finding mode that essentially gives you Batman’s Arkham-like detective vision, as well as the ability to jump into any scene and play out alternate narrative paths. These features could almost be called quality-of-life fixes, as they remove some of the grinding required without them, and they’re not the only new toys I’d like to see permanently in a game like this. Frank Stone also uses neat on-screen prompts to let you know when advancing through an area will make it impossible to proceed further. This eliminates the worry of you cutting off optional items or paths prematurely. I hope the team can do the same in all future games.
By now, those who have played Supermassive’s interactive horror “movie” since 2015 know what to expect from Frank Stone Casting. If you just want to play the next awesome version of the formula, this isn’t the option for you. But for Dead by Daylight fans looking to flesh out their lore bibles, potential fans wanting to learn about multiplayer, or horror fans ready to carve pumpkins and dive into piles of crispy orange leaves, Frank Stone Selected “Angle” is the best choice.
