Even the briefest look at promotional supplies for The Casting of Frank Stone reveals that it’s a story “from the world of Lifeless by Daylight“. Nowhere is that this extra obvious than on the title display screen of the sport itself, the place the franchise’s identify is up there equally as large and daring as the sport’s precise title.
However whatever the IP it is being launched beneath, make no mistake: The Casting of Frank Stone is a Supermassive recreation by means of and thru. How you’re feeling about taking part in it’s going to most likely have much more to do with how a lot you get pleasure from that studio’s horror-flavoured journey recreation stylings, than whether or not you are a fan of Behaviour Interactive’s all-devouring horror IP toybox of an uneven on-line multiplayer.
I am within the lucky place of being a fan of each DBD and Supermassive, with a very hyperfixational relationship with the latter’s already in depth catalogue of interactive movie-style horror video games, so naturally I am consuming properly on this one. And whereas minute-to-minute this can be primarily one for the Supermassive followers, DBD lore nerds would even be remiss to sleep on it simply because it performs in a different way from the principle recreation.
This is not the primary time that Lifeless by Daylight has flirted with the concept of a spin-off and turned to the specialists to hold it out. Again in 2022, Hooked on You: A Lifeless by Daylight Relationship Simulator was launched courtesy of Psyop, the group finest identified for producing that KFC courting sim that was by some means an entire recreation with surprisingly excessive manufacturing values and never an April Idiot’s tweet. Regardless of its goofy premise — or, to be honest, most likely exactly due to it — Hooked on You was carried out with all of the earnestness of a group who know precisely find out how to work their chosen style.
So naturally, for a story-rich and lore-heavy Lifeless by Daylight journey recreation, Behaviour Interactive have turned to Supermassive Video games — the studio behind iconic interactive horror drama Till Daybreak, and its religious sequels The Quarry and The Darkish Footage Anthology — to do what they do finest and run with the idea.
Supermassive’s QTE-oriented gameplay integrates extraordinarily properly with Lifeless by Daylight’s signature talent checks, so DBD fanatics who’ve by no means checked out an interactive journey like this earlier than will not be left utterly fumbling. However whereas The Casting of Frank Stone does promise each single-player and multiplayer choices, it is story-oriented investigative and decision-based non-compulsory co-op that’ll see you taking part in on the identical aspect as all your pals with the intention of serving to the protagonists survive, somewhat than working round a grotty area furtively fixing up mills whereas certainly one of you tries to horribly homicide the remainder.
The total recreation will comply with Supermassive custom in that includes the views of a number of characters, however within the single-player demo I previewed, the only real playable character is Sam Inexperienced, a Nineteen Seventies police officer and possibly not one of many younger buddies promised as the first playable group. Sam is the type of calm and affordable African-American cop that trendy media depends on to hold the viewers’s sympathy when the plot requires a police officer as protagonist, and you understand what, he will get away with it. However because it appears as if that is the prologue to the sport correct, it is perhaps finest to not get too hooked up to him or Tom — the conspiracy-spouting night time shift safety guard on the spooky previous metal mill which is the sport’s central setting, and who presumably will function Participant 2’s avatar in co-op — since Supermassive prologue protagonists are inclined to have the type of life expectancy that might ship mayflies into mourning.
If there’s one large stylistic departure from Supermassive’s ordinary tone to mark this as a Lifeless by Daylight story particularly, it is the literal viscera on show. Supermassive do not precisely draw back from gory imagery, however nonetheless the scene I discovered most memorable on this preview was the one the place Sam spends a surprisingly very long time plunging his arms right into a pile of natural ick that he and Tom encounter whereas looking the grounds of the metal mill for a lacking little one. Sam exhibits no hesitation getting wrist-deep within the stuff even earlier than figuring out it as human stays, in what quickly descends right into a traditional Supermassive funnier-than-it’s-probably-meant-to-be alternate as he and Tom calmly debate what on earth all this gooey pink stuff with a rib cage protruding of it is perhaps.
These odd slips into surrealist goofiness go well with the tone of a Lifeless by Daylight recreation notably properly, although, even when I get the sensation that The Casting of Frank Stone — which places a literal tiny child in seen peril inside this primary hour, so you understand they imply enterprise — is supposed to be a barely extra critical entry into the franchise than the one the place Lara Croft and Steve from Stranger Issues get menaced by a demented Okay-Pop idol.
The occasional tonal oddity apart, although, The Casting of Frank Stone contains a suitably creepy set-up. Certain, empty metal mills in the dark is perhaps a little bit of a cliché, but it surely’s the right setting to marry Supermassive’s signature riffs on traditional horror with Lifeless by Daylight’s dirty industrial atmosphere. Supermassive have spent years honing their craft at this level, so it is no shock that they managed to nail each the central setting and the broader environment of the agricultural Oregon city of Cedar Hills, a neighborhood clearly dominated by the inescapable prominence of its central trade.
You possibly can really feel the venerable affect of Twin Peaks and Silent Hill as Sam descends into the bowels of the imposing metal mill, helped alongside specifically by some stellar sound design work that cranks up the dread notch by insufferable notch. For the report, I — comfortably a horror style veteran — performed this demo in a well-lit room in the course of the afternoon on one of many brightest and hottest days in August, and I used to be nonetheless getting shivers at each distant clang and unidentifiable scurrying sound.
By the top of this 45-minute-ish demo, I am going to admit I nonetheless wasn’t completely certain what precisely goes to make The Casting of Frank Stone a Lifeless by Daylight story. At one level a personality will get pushed onto a metal pipe that goes by means of his shoulder in a intentionally unsubtle reference to DBD’s iconic meathook spearings, and the tease on the preview’s conclusion has me completely certain that it is all a matter of plot particulars that can reveal themselves in good time. However there’s not a lot else on show to distinguish what I’ve seen up to now considerably from Supermassive’s different narrative horror video games.
Whether or not this can be a draw back or not will rely in your causes for desirous to play The Casting of Frank Stone, in fact. Supermassive longtimers like myself will probably be happy to be getting extra of what they love after an unusually lengthy quiet interval from the studio, which not too long ago took a break from its common annual launch schedule and hasn’t put out a brand new recreation in 18 months. However Lifeless by Daylight followers dipping into interactive storytelling for the primary time within the hope of a ton of lore particulars may must train their endurance, because the devs have resisted the urge to cram each scene filled with easter eggs.
However this has a silver lining, as a result of Supermassive’s angle to constructing on the lore of the DBD universe appears to be rather more delicate than that — for a given worth of “delicate” that features a enormous alien beast with vicious tendrils looming out of the mist. Whether or not this implies we’re getting some key backstory about The Entity’s arrival on this aircraft of actuality, or a self-contained lore snippet about some creep named Frank Stone earlier than he inevitably will get added to DBD’s killer roster, stays to be seen. Happily, you do not should be a Lifeless by Daylight megafan to understand what Supermassive have put collectively right here — an appreciation for atmospheric horror tales is all that is required.
