The Casting of Frank Stone

Lore & Background

The Casting of Frank Stone is set during the summer of 1980 in the town of Cedar Hills, Oregon, and involves four young aspiring filmmakers who want to make a horror movie in a condemned steel mill. The game includes a branching narrative, environmental puzzles, and quick time events (QTEs). Players gather clues to learn more about Cedar Hills and the mysteries of the titular Frank Stone, who in the 1963 timeline is a child victim, not a serial killer.

Reader's Guide

The Casting of Frank Stone is a narrative expansion of the Dead by Daylight universe, spanning three divergent timelines orchestrated by a cosmic, malevolent being known as the Entity. The story begins in 1963 with police officer Sam Green confronting serial killer Frank Stone at a local steel mill. In 1980, teenage filmmakers explore the abandoned mill, and in 2024, characters gather at an English manor owned by cultist Augustine Lieber, who uses a time machine called the Horologium to bridge parallel realities. The plot involves Frank's resurrection and the Entity's trials. The game received mixed or average reviews on Metacritic and fair approval on OpenCritic, with 38% of critics recommending it.

Did You Know?

• The game was announced in May 2023 and officially revealed at The Game Awards in December 2022.
• Behaviour Interactive's Senior Copywriting Team Lead, Justin Fragapane, stated that 'every decision you make pens the script'.
• The game features a time machine called the Horologium that allows characters and artefacts to bridge parallel realities.

The Three-Timeline Narrative

The Casting of Frank Stone weaves its story across three distinct eras, all anchored to the town of Cedar Hills, Oregon, and the condemned steel mill that serves as its central location. In 1963, police officer Sam Green confronts the serial killer Frank Stone at the mill, ultimately shooting him after the murderer attempts to sacrifice an infant. Two decades later, in the summer of 1980, a group of teenage aspiring filmmakers—Linda, Jaime, Chris, Bonnie, and Robert—infiltrate the same abandoned structure to shoot their amateur horror picture, Murder Mill. A mysterious camera purchased from an enigmatic shopkeeper inadvertently channels paranormal energy, summoning Frank's undead spirit and triggering a deadly hunt. The 2024 timeline transports the narrative to an English manor owned by the cultist Augustine Lieber, whose estate secretly contains the Horologium, a massive time machine capable of bridging parallel realities. Augustine has spent decades collecting alternate versions of the Murder Mill film from divergent timelines, ultimately reassembling Frank's essence and resurrecting him as a monstrous entity. The story culminates with the surviving characters cast into the Entity's realm, while Frank assumes his destined role as a killer within the Entity's endless trials.

Gameplay & Design Philosophy

Following the interactive drama formula established across Supermassive Games' previous titles, The Casting of Frank Stone presents players with a branching narrative, environmental puzzles, and quick-time events that demand split-second reactions. Behaviour Interactive's Senior Copywriting Team Lead Justin Fragapane framed the design philosophy with the line that every decision a player makes effectively writes the script, potentially serving as the sole barrier between survival and death for the group of young friends at the story's center. Players must also gather environmental clues to unravel the deeper mysteries of Cedar Hills and the figure of Frank Stone himself. Supermassive's Steve Goss acknowledged that returning fans of the studio's catalogue would find familiar territory in the core structure, yet emphasized that substantial portions of the experience diverge significantly from a typical Supermassive release. He attributed this departure to the game's deep integration with the Dead by Daylight world, noting that the team worked to strike a balance between the studio's signature narrative interactivity and the broader horror ecosystem that players already know. The result is a single-player title that feels both like a Supermassive game and something distinctly shaped by its franchise context.

Development & the Behaviour–Supermassive Partnership

In May 2023, Behaviour Interactive publicly confirmed that Supermassive Games was developing a single-player narrative experience set within the Dead by Daylight universe. The project received its formal unveiling at the 2023 Game Awards, where a teaser trailer was presented to a global audience. Behaviour's head of partnerships, Mathieu Cote, explained that crafting a standalone narrative title in the Dead by Daylight world had long been a studio aspiration, but the team did not yet possess the single-player design experience needed to pull it off. Rather than building that capability internally, they opted to seek a partner, and Supermassive was the very first studio they reached out to. The collaboration culminated in a simultaneous September 3, 2024 launch across PlayStation 5, Windows, and Xbox Series X/S. The partnership represented a natural alignment of strengths: Behaviour supplied the franchise's established lore, its cast of characters, and the Entity's overarching mythology, while Supermassive contributed the interactive-drama craft—branching story structures, environmental puzzles, and quick-time event design—that had become the hallmark of the studio's previous single-player narrative releases.

Critical Reception & Franchise Significance

Upon its September 2024 release, The Casting of Frank Stone encountered a divided critical response. Metacritic classified the game's aggregate critical score as reflecting 'mixed or average' opinion. OpenCritic offered a somewhat more measured assessment, noting the title earned what it described as 'fair approval,' with 38 percent of reviewing critics extending a recommendation. While the reception did not reach the threshold of universal praise, the game nonetheless accomplished a meaningful first for the Dead by Daylight franchise: it delivered a dedicated single-player narrative expansion of that universe, a format Behaviour Interactive had long aspired to but lacked the internal single-player design experience to produce on its own. The story's final act, in which Frank Stone is drawn into the Entity's realm and takes up his new role as a killer within the Entity's endless trials, creates a direct narrative bridge between the interactive-drama format and the broader Dead by Daylight ecosystem. For players already immersed in that universe, the game functioned as both a deep lore exploration spanning three timelines and a narrative foundation for Frank Stone's place among the Entity's trials, grounding his origin in the specific events of Cedar Hills, Oregon.

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