Many moons ago, Telltale Games put adventure/horror point-and-click adventure games back on gamers’ radars with The Walking Dead. Later, developers Don’t Nod took the genre to the next level, giving us the amazing storytelling and unique gameplay elements in the Life is Strange series. However, for many the turning point for the genre came with the 2015 release of the PlayStation exclusive Until Dawn by Supermassive Games.
The visual and audio work was shocking. You instantly felt like you were in this creepy environment with the characters and to add to the stress of trying to make the best choices the game had instant permadeath, so even if you rage quit the game your choice was already saved. The only way to change this outcome was by either pushing forward and completing the game which unlocked all the chapters or restarting the game from the beginning.
I alongside others from The Koalition replayed Until Dawn multiple times to see the various endings. Supermassive Games later created The Dark Pictures Anthology series which was multi-platform and had some standout titles with fan-requested features such as local and online co-op play. So, I was intrigued when Dead by Daylight developers Behaviour Interactive announced that they were working to bring their Dead by Daylight universe to a new genre and hiring Supermassive Games to develop this game.
Full disclosure, while I have played all the Supermassive Games, I have put a handful of hours in Dead by Daylight. I have no strong reason for not investing more time into the game other than survival horror games of that type were never my jam. I was also really impressed with the humility shown by Behaviour Interactive to pretty much say, hey, we want to branch out and expand our IP into other gameplay types, and instead of stumbling around to get it worked out they hired a team known as masters in this style of game.
The Casting of Frank Stone is a survival horror point-and-click adventure game. Some key elements are a must-have for games in this genre to be successful. One is having an interesting story with engaging characters. This is especially important since you’ll be spending 90% of your playtime walking, talking, and exploring.
Thankfully, The Casting of Frank Stone does have a creepy story to tell. Avoiding spoilers, in the 1960s people went missing, notably a baby in the small town named Cedar Hills. A police officer decides to investigate a Mill factory at night and makes some gruesome discoveries. Now they will then do some storytelling time jumps from the 1980s to 2024 to tie branching paths together for the characters which produces a rather interesting story.
In the main menu options, you can choose to die alone or die together. The game offers local co-op for up to 5 players. How it works is you will assign a friend to each character so as the story progresses and you switch control of a character then it’s time to pass the controller.
This is a great feature that’s used in other Supermassive Games such as The Quarry, but unfortunately, there is no online co-op like in the Dark Pictures series. If you’re horrible at QTEs you can turn off the timer in the accessibility options to make it a more enjoyable experience for those in your group not familiar with the process. And the truth is these games are intended to be played in a group or party setting to obtain the best possible experience.
Now there is permadeath and once you complete the campaign you can view a timeline of the entire game which shows you which points you can replay and if there are any alternate paths you can take. Some may require you to replay more of the game to achieve a different outcome than others but the goal here is to produce a different ending which there are multiple.
Along the way, you will find some collectible items and complete puzzles to progress the story but nothing SURPRISING happens. We were constantly waiting for something horrible to appear or occur behind the next door, especially how the characters would explain certain events which we would then play, but nothing would materialize, at least not until the last hour of the game.
The Casting of Frank Stone, when compared to other Supermassive Games releases feels a bit empty and toned down. The story was interesting, and the voice acting was great but the gameplay was lacking and overall, the game felt more like a horror-themed walking simulator.
Other than Behaviour Interactive saying this game is from the Dead by Daylight universe, I didn’t see any connection other than turning on generators and finding some items seen in Dead by Daylight. I’m not sure if this is a one-off or if they plan to release more but if they do, I hope they incorporate more gameplay elements in between the constant walking and add a run button.
This review was written based on a digital review copy of The Casting of Frank Stone for Xbox Series X provided by Supermassive Games and Behaviour Interactive.
