Once I began writing up my shortlist of 2024 GOTY candidates earlier this autumn – in an try and kind by means of a messy combination of widely-agreed-upon hits I nonetheless wanted to play and complete coronary heart picks I meant to go to bat for – The Casting of Frank Stone simply cleared my private high 10, fairly clearly within the latter class.
Admittedly, this sport was by no means going to be a tough promote in my case. So far as I am involved, the horror output of Supermassive Video games solely is available in three flavours: “good”, “nice”, and “wonderful”. Actually the one really unhealthy time I’ve ever had with one in every of their video games was throughout the denouement of Little Hope, and even then, I received over it fairly rapidly.
And, whereas my precise playtime in Lifeless by Daylight is unquestionably eclipsed by the hours I’ve spent obsessively digging into the lore surrounding it, I believe that is nonetheless adequate to name myself a fan. So a Lifeless by Daylight story mode-style spin-off developed by Supermassive was, for me, the definition of a no brainer.
I did not go in anticipating something earth-shattering – simply the promise of a Lifeless by Daylight story within the fashion of The Darkish Footage Anthology was already greater than sufficient to win me over. However whereas Frank Stone considerably predictably didn’t set the world on hearth when it launched on September third (which means that we share a birthday, coincidentally, though I promise that is solely made me a little biased in its favour), I used to be nonetheless pleasantly shocked by how a lot I rated it. It is perhaps in my all-time Supermassive high three, truthfully.
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The Casting of Frank Stone is each intriguing and grim. Charting the intertwined fates of 5 playable protagonists throughout three completely different time intervals – all linked by a historic collection of killings within the city of Cedar Hills, Oregon, and the next launch of a no-budget pupil movie impressed by the case – simply theorising as to what’s actually happening is sufficient to maintain you in your toes for a lot of the sport. It is received environment in spades, and a good quantity of selection in its choose-your-own-adventure gameplay, however at its coronary heart that is 100% one for the lore nerds, alright.
In all probability to its greatest detriment is the truth that The Casting of Frank Stone ends on a brutal narrative gut-punch that can solely land in the event you’re no less than passingly aware of the broader worldbuilding of Lifeless by Daylight. I do not assume that it is a failure of the sport, which I consider achieved precisely what it got down to do, and delivered a narrative that might hook followers of its guardian collection (pun completely meant). However once I take into consideration the way it got here out after which went away once more with comparatively little fanfare, I think that this is perhaps an enormous half as to why.
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Nonetheless, in an leisure business more and more dominated by cynical model tie-ins between the largest wallets on the one hand, and brutal copyright takedowns smothering small artists in petty disputes on the opposite, I do not thoughts telling you that I for one wish to see extra collaborations like The Casting of Frank Stone: simply a few studios taking a chance to fulfill organically on the intersection of their specialities, to see what shenanigans end result from the mashup. That type of co-operation popping out of creative compatibility forward of economic incentive feels so uncommon that it is virtually retro in and of itself.
So, even when The Casting of Frank Stone wasn’t for everybody, I would like to see extra video games undertake its sample going ahead. And in case your two favorite video games simply occur to be, say, Lifeless by Daylight and Till Daybreak, then there is a good likelihood that it truly might be your tailored GOTY in any case – honestly, it got here slightly near being mine.
