The Casting of Frank Stone was by no means meant to be GOTY materials, however its underrated method for crowd-pleasing collaborations is one I want we noticed extra usually

Once I began writing up my shortlist of 2024 GOTY candidates earlier this autumn – in an try to type by means of a messy combination of widely-agreed-upon hits I nonetheless wanted to play and whole coronary heart picks I supposed to go to bat for – The Casting of Frank Stone simply cleared my private prime 10, fairly clearly within the latter class.

Admittedly, this recreation 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 dangerous time I’ve ever had with certainly one of their video games was in the course of the denouement of Little Hope, and even then, I received over it fairly shortly.

And, whereas my precise playtime in Useless by Daylight is certainly eclipsed by the hours I’ve spent obsessively digging into the lore surrounding it, I feel that is nonetheless enough to name myself a fan. So a Useless 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 Useless by Daylight story within the fashion of The Darkish Photos Anthology was already greater than sufficient to win me over. However whereas Frank Stone considerably predictably did not set the world on fireplace when it launched on September third (that 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 may be in my all-time Supermassive prime three, actually.

The Casting of Frank Stone is each intriguing and grim. Charting the intertwined fates of 5 playable protagonists throughout three completely different time durations – all related by a historic collection of killings within the city of Cedar Hills, Oregon, and the next launch of a no-budget scholar movie impressed by the case – simply theorising as to what’s actually occurring is sufficient to preserve you in your toes for a lot of the sport. It is received environment in spades, and an honest quantity of selection in its choose-your-own-adventure gameplay, however at its coronary heart that is 100% one for the lore nerds, alright.

Most likely to its largest detriment is the truth that The Casting of Frank Stone ends on a brutal narrative gut-punch that can solely land for those who’re at the least passingly accustomed to the broader worldbuilding of Useless by Daylight. I do not suppose that it is a failure of the sport, which I imagine achieved precisely what it got down to do, and delivered a narrative that may hook followers of its father or mother collection (pun completely supposed). 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 may be an enormous half as to why.

However, 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 need to see extra collaborations like The Casting of Frank Stone: simply a few studios taking a possibility to fulfill organically on the intersection of their specialities, to see what shenanigans outcome 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 might like to see extra video games undertake its sample going ahead. And in case your two favorite video games simply occur to be, say, Useless by Daylight and Till Daybreak, then there is a good probability that it truly could possibly be your tailored GOTY in any case – honestly, it got here slightly near being mine.