This Dead by Daylight spinoff fits the successful Supermassive formula

You may not realize it, thanks to all the crossovers with pop culture icons like Lara Croft, Nicolas Cage, Dracula, Simon Belmont, and even Five Nights at Freddy’s, but asymmetrical 4v1 horror game Dead by Daylight has a ton of original lore. Developer Behaviour Interactive has taken swings at expanding on these stories, but the spin-off game The Casting of Frank Stone by renowned horror studio Supermassive is probably the most ambitious attempt yet. I was able to play a preview chapter for the game, which gave me a look at how Frank Stone will play out upon release. 

The Casting of Frank Stone is familiar territory for Supermassive, the developer of Until Dawn, The Dark Pictures Anthology, and The Quarry. These titles focus on narrative experiences told through cinematics, punctuated with player choices. A successful run can lead to everyone surviving and a relatively happy ending, but certain choices — or flubbed quick-time events — can lead to murder and mayhem.

Interestingly, the quick-time events in Frank Stone have two sweet spots — a basic success, and then a smaller window for a better outcome. I’m curious to see how this pays off in the full game; perhaps all the Dead by Daylight players out there who have practice fixing generators will be able to score better results.

The controls of The Casting of Frank Stone differ from the Dark Pictures Anthology; instead of watching locked camera angles showing characters maneuvering through each scene, the point of view is third-person, and the player controls the camera. That makes investigating relatively easy. Just like Supermassive’s other titles, I took my time digging into each scene and trying to find juicy secrets or hidden trinkets.

In the preview, I play as Sam, a cop investigating the case of a missing child in the small town of Cedar Hills. I head into a creepy steel mill and uncover the stink of death. Predictably, things get messy when Sam runs into Frank Stone. Thanks to some quick choices, I was able to save the missing kid and stop Frank — which seems like a happy ending, but then a mysterious woman named Augustine Lieber delivered a suspicious monologue about the Entity, making me think things aren’t quite over.

According to marketing materials, the rest of the game will focus on a few plucky kids in the modern day. These kids decide to dig into the Frank Stone story, and they uncover some supernatural scares. I have faith that Supermassive can pull off a great contained narrative, but I’m curious to see how it ties into the greater lore of Dead by Daylight.

We’ve seen plenty of seeds planted by Behaviour before about the Entity, its multiversal nature, and the way it can claim both Survivors and Killers in moments when they experience great emotional intensity. The Entity can pull both predator and prey into a strange realm called the Fog, where they are tasked with endless trials. Hooked On You, the Dead by Daylight dating sim, played with this concept but didn’t commit to making any serious strides in the lore.

Will the Dead by Daylight canon be able to support a longer horror narrative? I hope Supermassive is able to get weird and push hard into the absurd and ambitious parts of the setting. I want the Fog and the Entity to enjoy their time in the spotlight; if the Dead by Daylight lore is just simple set dressing for a more typical horror story, then I’ll be disappointed.

The Casting of Frank Stone is set to launch on Sept. 3 for PlayStation 5, PC, and Xbox Series X.