The Casting of Frank Stone Preview: Hands-on (and with gameplay capture)

This is looking good.

We’re less than a month out from The Casting of Frank Stone, a new Supermassive narrative horror title set in the universe of Behaviour Interactive’s Dead by Daylight franchise. Luckily, both studios allowed Stevivor the chance to get hands-on with the title’s first chapter, “The Burning Maw”.

If you’re familiar with Supermassive’s outings — as I certainly am, considering myself a fan and adoring the likes of Until Dawn and, most recently, The Quarry — you’ll know what to expect here. The thing is, you mightn’t be familiar with how these games play out, as you might be coming into this a fan of Behaviour’s asymmetrical multiplayer outing. 

If you’re in the latter camp, think of Frank Stone as a very scary Choose Your Own Adventure. Highly narrative, you’ll take control of various characters — in the case of the preview, policeman Sam Green — and make dialogue choices and overall decisions that will largely impact what’s to follow. You’ll also gain control of these characters for more direct actions, investigating crime scenes, hunting for collectibles, and engaging in quicktime events that may be life or death.

The preview focused on Green as he explored Cedar Hill’s largest steel mill, on the hunt for a missing child. While this first chapter largely introduces the player to Supermassive’s standard mechanics, it also sets the tone for what’s to come. A mysterious figure lurks within the shadows, looking to use the titular Stone as some sort of mechanism to connect with Dead by Daylight‘s famous Entity.

Quite familiar with both franchises, I found myself giggling as I picked up a crowbar and heard a familiar Dead by Daylight sting when doing so. I did the same when getting a prompt to use that item later on, and again when I found that some of Frank Stone‘s quicktime events are in the exact same form as a DbD skill check. I won’t be surprised if you’ll need to kickstart a generator somewhere down the line.

As is standard with a Supermassive title, your actions will change how the overall story plays out — my (age-restricted, as the title is rated R here in Australia) gameplay capture, below, is only one possible way to get through the opening. I’m curious to see what would happen if I failed a couple more skill checks, or opted not to get gun happy as the chapter concluded.

Part of me thinks the way I’ve played has potentially made the threat of the Entity (and Stone himself) even stronger, despite doing what I think was the right thing.

While I can obviously replay the experience to find out, I have a strong feeling that you’ll get your own chance to do so soon via a demo. If not, that’s not so bad — there’s not long before The Casting of Frank Stone heads to consoles and PC anyway.

You can expect The Casting of Frank Stone from 3 September across Windows PC, Xbox Series S, Xbox Series X, and PS5. Many thanks to Behaviour and Supermassive for letting us check it out early!

The Casting of Frank Stone 4 September PC PS5 Xbox Series S & X   Buy on Windows PC: Steam Buy on Xbox: Microsoft Store Buy on PlayStation: PlayStation Store