Even the briefest look at promotional supplies for The Casting of Frank Stone reveals that it’s a story “from the world of Useless 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 huge and daring as the sport’s precise title.
However whatever the IP it is being launched below, make no mistake: The Casting of Frank Stone is a Supermassive recreation by and thru. How you’re feeling about enjoying it would most likely have much more to do with how a lot you take pleasure in 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 intensive catalogue of interactive movie-style horror video games, so naturally I am consuming effectively 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 primary recreation.
This is not the primary time that Useless by Daylight has flirted with the thought of a spin-off and turned to the consultants to hold it out. Again in 2022, Hooked on You: A Useless by Daylight Courting Simulator was launched courtesy of Psyop, the workforce finest recognized for producing that KFC courting sim that was one way or the other a whole 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 workforce who know precisely tips on how to work their chosen style.
So naturally, for a story-rich and lore-heavy Useless by Daylight journey recreation, Behaviour Interactive have turned to Supermassive Video games — the studio behind iconic interactive horror drama Till Daybreak, and its non secular 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 effectively with Useless by Daylight’s signature ability checks, so DBD fans who’ve by no means checked out an interactive journey like this earlier than will not be left fully 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-obligatory co-op that’ll see you enjoying on the identical aspect as all your pals with the goal of serving to the protagonists survive, quite than working round a grotty enviornment furtively fixing up turbines whereas certainly one of you tries to horribly homicide the remainder.
The complete 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 Seventies police officer and possibly not one of many younger associates promised as the first playable group. Sam is the type of calm and cheap 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 recognize 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 evening 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 huge stylistic departure from Supermassive’s regular tone to mark this as a Useless by Daylight story particularly, it is the literal viscera on show. Supermassive do not precisely shrink back from gory imagery, however however the scene I discovered most memorable on this preview was the one the place Sam spends a surprisingly very long time plunging his palms 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 trade as he and Tom calmly debate what on earth all this gooey crimson stuff with a rib cage protruding of it could be.
These odd slips into surrealist goofiness swimsuit the tone of a Useless by Daylight recreation notably effectively, 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 recognize 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 Ok-Pop idol.
The occasional tonal oddity apart, although, The Casting of Frank Stone encompasses a suitably creepy set-up. Positive, empty metal mills at the hours of darkness could be a little bit of a cliché, but it surely’s the right setting to marry Supermassive’s signature riffs on traditional horror with Useless 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 ambiance of the agricultural Oregon city of Cedar Hills, a neighborhood clearly dominated by the inescapable prominence of its central business.
You may 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 file, I — comfortably a horror style veteran — performed this demo in a well-lit room in the midst 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 tip of this 45-minute-ish demo, I will admit I nonetheless wasn’t fully positive what precisely goes to make The Casting of Frank Stone a Useless by Daylight story. At one level a personality will get pushed onto a metal pipe that goes by his shoulder in a intentionally unsubtle reference to DBD’s iconic meathook spearings, and the tease on the preview’s conclusion has me completely positive that it is all a matter of plot particulars that may 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 eager to play The Casting of Frank Stone, after all. Supermassive longtimers like myself can 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 Useless by Daylight followers dipping into interactive storytelling for the primary time within the hope of a ton of lore particulars may have to train their endurance, for the reason that devs have resisted the urge to cram each scene stuffed with easter eggs.
However this has a silver lining, as a result of Supermassive’s perspective to constructing on the lore of the DBD universe appears to be way 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. Thankfully, you do not have to be a Useless by Daylight megafan to know what Supermassive have put collectively right here — an appreciation for atmospheric horror tales is all that is required.
