Even the simplest glance at the promotional materials for “Frank Stone Casting” will reveal that this is a story “from the world of Dead by Daylight.” This is most evident on the title screen of the game itself, where the series’ name is as large and prominent as the game’s actual title.
But regardless of which IP it’s released under, make no mistake: Frank Stone Casting is a massive game through and through. How you feel about the game may have more to do with how much you like the studio’s style of horror-inspired adventure games than whether you’re a fan of Behavior Interactive’s toy box of asymmetrical online multiplayer horror IPs.
I’m lucky enough to be a fan of both DBD and Supermassive, with a particular fascination with the latter’s already extensive catalog of interactive cinematic horror games, so naturally I enjoyed this game. While this may be primarily aimed at Supermassive fans, DBD Legends nerds will also overlook it because it plays differently than the main game.
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This isn’t the first time Deadline has considered a spin-off and turned to experts for help to implement it. Back in 2022, Hooked on You: A Dead by Daylight Dating Simulator was released by Psyop, the team best known for making KFC dating sims, which was somewhat of a complete game with mind-blowing gameplay. Surprisingly high production value, not an April Fool’s tweet. Despite its goofy premise—or, to be fair, maybe because of it—Spellbound is made with seriousness by a team who know how to work their chosen genre.
So for a Dead by Daylight adventure game with a rich story and lore, Behavior Interactive naturally chose Supermassive Games – the studio behind the iconic interactive horror series Until Dawn and its spiritual sequel Quarry Production company of “The Field” and “The Dark Anthology.”
Supermassive’s QTE-oriented gameplay pairs perfectly with Deadline by Daylight’s signature skill rolls, so DBD fans who’ve never tried this type of interactive adventure before won’t feel completely out of their depth. While Frank Stone Casting does offer single-player and multiplayer options, it’s a story-driven investigation and decision-based optional co-op mode that will see you siding with all your friends. Side, aims to help the protagonists survive instead of running around a dingy arena secretly repairing generators while one of you attempts to gruesomely murder the rest.
The full game will follow Supermassive’s tradition of featuring multiple characters’ perspectives, but in the single-player demo I previewed, the only playable character was Sam Green, a 1970s cop who may not be the main character promised as the main character. One of a group of young friends with playable characters. Sam is the kind of calm, reasonable African-American cop that modern media relies on to gain sympathy from the audience, and when the plot calls for a cop as a protagonist, you know what, he gets away with it. But since this appears to be a prologue to the game itself, it’s best not to rely too much on him or Tom – the conspiracy-mongering night guard in the game’s central setting, the ghostly old steel factory, and who he might be Act as player 2’s avatar in co-op – because the life expectancy of the main character in Superscale’s prologue tends to send mayflies into mourning.
If there’s one thing about Supermassive that’s stylistically very different from the usual style of Dead by Daylight stories, it’s the actual guts on display. The extra-large quality doesn’t entirely shy away from gory imagery, but nonetheless, the scene I found most memorable in this preview is the one where Sam takes a surprisingly long time to reach into something he and Tom encounter while searching the ground. Pile of organically disgusting scenes in a steel factory looking for missing children. Sam doesn’t hesitate to get it wrist-deep before identifying it as human remains, and as he and Tom calmly argue what the hell happened, it quickly turns into a classic supermassive exchange that’s better than its Might mean something more interesting.
These weirdly surreal goofy antics fit particularly well with the tone of the Dead By Daylight games, although I have a feeling the casting of Frank Stone – which made a real little baby out of the gate in the first hour – into visible danger, so you know they mean business – compared to Stranger Things where Lara Croft and Steve are threatened by a crazy K-pop idol. It’s a slightly more serious movie series.
But aside from the occasional eerie tone, The Casting of Frank Stone is also pretty creepy in its setting. Sure, an empty steel factory in the dead of night might be a bit cliche, but it’s the perfect setting to combine Supermassive’s signature classic horror elements with Dead by Daylight’s grimy industrial vibe. Supermassive has spent years honing their craft at this point, so it’s no surprise that they’ve successfully nailed the central setting and broader atmosphere of the rural town of Cedar Mountain, Oregon, a community clearly known for its dominant position due to its prominent position in core industries.
You can feel the heavy influence of Twin Peaks and Silent Hill as Sam travels deep into the bowels of the majestic steel factory, especially with the help of some excellent sound design work that elevates the level of horror to the point of being unbearable extent. For the record, I—a relaxed veteran of the horror genre—played this demo in a well-lit room on the afternoon of one of the brightest, hottest days in August, and I still cringe at every distant Trembling with jingles and unidentifiable sounds.
By the end of this 45-minute or so demo, I’ll admit that I’m still not entirely sure what exactly made the casting of Frank Stone the story of Dead by Daylight. At one point, a character is pushed onto a steel pipe that goes through his shoulders, a deliberately unsubtle reference to DBD’s iconic meathook spear, and the tease at the end of the trailer left me absolutely convinced that this was all a plot detail Question, these details will reveal themselves in time. But so far, what I’ve seen of the game isn’t significantly different from Supermassive’s other narrative horror games.
Of course, whether this is a drawback depends on why you want to play Frank Stone Casting. Super long-term gamers like me will be happy to get more of their favorite stuff after an unusually long quiet period for the studio, which recently paused its regular annual release schedule and hasn’t had one for 18 months A new game is released. But fans of Deadline’s first foray into interactive storytelling hoping for a wealth of story details may need to exercise their patience, as the developer has resisted the urge to cram every scene with Easter eggs .
But there’s a silver lining, as Supermassive’s approach to the lore of the DBD universe appears to be a lot more subtle than that – for a given value of “subtle”, it includes a giant alien beast with evil tendrils looming out of the mist . Does this mean we’ll get some key backstory on the entity’s arrival in this plane of reality, or a standalone lore about a certain monster named Frank Stone before he is inevitably added to DBD’s killer list? Fragments, that remains to be seen. Luckily, you don’t need to be a Dead By Daylight superfan to grasp what Supermassive has put together here – just appreciate the atmospheric horror story.
