Well, Kiln is probably the first real exception to that. I don’t understand why it would go in this direction or how it could deliver something to appeal to the casual PvP crowd.

In its over-the-top, comedic announcement – later revealed to be highly scripted and exhausting – Kiln showcased a fusion of two base human instincts: Creation and destruction. The former was brought forth by an in-game pottery system, where your playable character could be given form and customized with various designs, stickers, and more. The latter is where the actual gameplay came in: Competitive multiplayer. That’s right – you were going to take those lovingly crafted pots and by gosh, destroy them in PvP matches against others.

It was almost easy to forget amid all this that the name actually comes from the core objective. Because you’re not just a pot smacking other pots, but also carrying water to extinguish the enemy team’s Kiln. The reasoning for this is flimsy at best, but Double Fine handles it with the usual narrative flair.

Plucked out of a shattered universe by Celadon, your spirit is given form in a pot. You have the freedom to shape other pots at will, and it’s not long before she sends you off to compete against spirit-bound pots, mysteriously teasing all the while.

Despite its relatively short length, this prologue highlights Double Fine’s strengths. Characterization, writing, a natural flow to the dialogue (one that becomes decidedly less enjoyable when reduced to standard vendor-speak) – and the set-up isn’t bad at all. If it were designed as a single-player game and given much more narrative gravitas and direction to go with the studio’s signature humor, Kiln could have really delivered something special narrative-wise.

Unfortunately, you’re then transported to a social hub where you can either shape different pots to inhabit, speak to Slip the dog who sells decorations, queue up for a match or invite others. On a daily basis, there’s a single pot that really wants you to smack it around and break it. Surprisingly, this comes across as only comically twisted, and I hope it stays that way.

One of the main selling points of Kiln is that you can design your own pot, and to that end, regardless of how creative you manage to be within the confines of its borders, there are eight “shapes.” For example, a rudimentary Vessel can unleash a charged sword slash. The longer it’s held, the more damage dealt in a forward arc, potentially smashing multiple opponents at a time. Craft a Bowl, and you can channel a Tornado that traps enemies and damages them. A Bottle can, meanwhile, unleash a stabbing Thrust that, while best suited for single-target, does a massive amount of damage.

You can further refine designs to achieve a proper balance of health and water capacity, or lean towards one over the other. The benefits are obvious – more health means more survivability in fights, while more water capacity means you can potentially deal more damage to the enemy Kiln.

Problems arise immediately once you start seeing other players with abilities that are simply not on your shelf, regardless of the shape. That’s because there’s also the clay size. As you level up, you get two more choices – Small and Large Clay, the former with more speed, which makes catching them with the awkward combos tedious, and the latter emphasizing more health. Currently, there are players taking advantage of the Small Cup’s Snake Can ability, which can deal damage over time. Landing the ability isn’t difficult, and there’s pretty much no counterplay. It can even stack, making it all the more obnoxious.

Then again, the Medium Cup’s Popcorn Blast isn’t any less skill-based, since you can charge it indefinitely, and it heavily damages enemies in a radius, even knocking them away. At least you can roll away from that if you know it’s coming.

Beyond the Clay types are different tools for further refining a pot (also locked behind leveling up), though you can enable a cross-section view for free. But once you’ve got the design down, it’s off to Quench, the only game mode where two teams of four players duke it out. And right away, I have to ask: Even if it’s only $20, why only one mode? Why no free-for-all, or something with larger teams? Not that the population is actually booming or anything, with a peak of less than 200 concurrent on Steam, but why not have private matches to let players alter the rules as they see fit?

If you can look past the iffy targeting and otherwise awkward melee combat, the map design in Kiln is…fine. There’s a stage with a mosh pit, where the center continually dips down, allowing for isolated skirmishes (or a top off of water), and another that involves platforming across moving boats to reach the enemy kiln. Athena’s War Room is interesting because both kilns are essentially across from each other – the water is located in a hedge maze-like layout, and you can shoot water to create timed barricades. This map was perhaps my favorite, since there were plenty of ways to evade and bamboozle enemies when you’re not all gathered at the junction, engaging in one big melee. Thinking I had cornered an opponent, only for them to dip under an opening and then re-emerge with a Sword thrust was pretty cool.

But such moments of strategy and counterplay are few and far between, despite Kiln placing so much emphasis on the same (right down to swapping to a different shape mid-match as a counterpick). I also found it quite annoying that most times when attacked by two players, the hit stun makes it nearly impossible to fight back. Granted, this emphasizes teamwork and rolling away while weak to find some backup, but it is so easily abusable when simply running around with another teammate and ganging up on those caught out.

You could argue that it’s not a “serious” PvP game, and yet, that just makes me wonder about the whole point of Kiln’s existence. It’s a faux Capture the Flag-style objective-based mode, with some MOBA lite meets party brawler elements – an intriguing fusion, but also one that never even sniffs the highs of any of the best in these genres.

And much as I actually like the art direction, especially in the stages, and the sound design, the performance on PC is truly an anomaly. Check the recommended requirements – an Intel Core Ultra 5 225 or AMD Ryzen 7 5700X, 32 GB of RAM and a GeForce RTX 4060 Ti or AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT with 12 GB VRAM – and then tell me whether it delivers fidelity deserving of the same. As a result, I had to run it on Medium settings at 1440p with DLSS and Frame Gen enabled. At least this delivered a relatively smooth frame rate, but the occasional hitch was noticeable.

At the end of the day, despite how neat it can be to craft a pot so thoroughly, Kiln is just another competitive multiplayer title to add to the pile – Double Fine’s own Bleeding Edge moment. Even if it receives more content down the line – which is usually when a player base massively drops – its uniqueness belies a gameplay loop that quickly becomes tedious and repetitive. Mostly dead on arrival and probably not aspiring to much more than an awkward experiment, I really hope it’s just that and nothing more.

This game was reviewed on PC.

The premise sees you as a spirit that’s inhabited a clay pot, which can craft new ones to house your formless body. Why, you ask? Well, it’s only because your buddies are on the same page, and you’re going to use those pots in 4v4 battles, complete with special abilities and a lot of breakage. There are a lot of ways to personalize your pots, and style is as important as victory over those pesky rivals of yours.

The new trailer is an indicator that those spirits do love a fun time, though, and the game’s bizarre premise is matched by its visual style that’s both charming and abstract at once.

If you’re on the fence about this one, we’ve put everything you need to know about it in one place. It’s releasing for PS5, PC, and Xbox Series X|S on April 23rd, and will also be available on Game Pass. Double Fine has promised post-launch support, including new maps, in the coming months, so stay tuned for more updates.

Game Overview

Kiln is an upcoming party brawler for teams of four-versus-four, where you’ll face off against each other in fast-paced, physics-based matches which lean into the same chaotic energy as Party Animals, TowerFall Ascension, or Super Smash Bros – all with a pottery twist. The overarching objective is simple: carry water through battle to extinguish the other team’s flaming kiln, all while protecting your own. However, there is a surprising amount of depth to achieving that goal, where victory hinges on reflex, creativity, and co-ordination as much as aggression.

You Build What You Fight With

Yes, you lovingly sculpt your own ceramics before each battle, then they become the vessel from which you unleash chaos. This idea is one of Kiln’s most distinctive, and it’s a clever diversion from typical character selection screens, where your personality bakes directly into your avatar’s class. Further, there’s a strange satisfaction in seeing something handmade be thrown into combat, knowing whether it survives (or more likely shatters) is part of the core experience.

Pottery Design Impacts Gameplay

What’s more, your ceramic creations directly impact gameplay, with your finished pot shape and size determining how it handles, its durability, water carrying capacity, and more. Even special combat manoeuvres will vary between bowls, jugs, bottles, and the like – more on this later. The sculpting phase is a fully-realised crafting process too, where designing your pottery is as much about strategy as it is creation, with near-infinite combinations to concoct something truly unique.

Size Defines Your Role

In Kiln, the most effective teams will bring a mix of shapes and sizes to battle. See, smaller plates and pots tend to be faster and more agile, making them ideal for hit-and-run tactics, sneaking, or chipping away at larger, more cumbersome pots. Large vases and the like aren’t scuppered by their slower speeds though, as they’re significantly more durable, allowing them to absorb damage and brute-force their way through opposition territory.

You Can Save Your Favourite Designs

Whilst the pottery wheel does provide catharsis through creation, there’ll be times when you’ll want to streamline the process. Well, Kiln has you covered – you can save up to three custom pot designs that can be quickly selected before matches. This will save you from having to recreate your most successful designs each time, but given the wealth of builds available during the sculpting phase your desire to create something new will always be encouraged.

Physics-Based Action Drives the Battle Experience

Combat in Kiln is heavily driven by physics, where battles present an almost slapstick quality in their tumbling unpredictability. Pots can roll, collide, and smash across acutely designed arenas, meaning precision likely isn’t as integral to surviving encounters as embracing the mayhem. In other words, learning how to work with the physics rather than against them is how you’ll gain the edge, all whilst having the most fun.

Water Management is Key

And how will you extinguish the opposing team’s flaming kiln if not for water. See, in Kiln, water may be your ammunition, but it’s also a resource you have to manage. As already alluded, your pot’s design denotes your carrying capacity, but you’ll need to collect it from puddles dotted throughout the battleground first. Then, you could race to the opposing kiln, but you’ll risk spilling it along the way, bumping into barriers or environmental hazards. No, a mix of patience and frenzy might be the key approach, as paradoxical as it sounds.

You Can Switch Pots After Death

Rather than locking you into a single, match-long strategy, Kiln gives you the option to switch pot designs after being eliminated. What this means is that you can switch your pot shape, size, and overall design to meet the needs of your team and adapt to how the battle is unfolding. However, matches might be a little too chaotic to get a full read of what’s going on, so it’ll be interesting to see how the developers provide you with ample-enough information to evaluate your team’s progress.

Pots Can Be Healed During Battle

In the heat of battle, it’s highly likely your vessel will be chipped or even broken. This wear, however, isn’t just for comedic impact, nor to reinforce the fragility of your creation, but to introduce a recovery system whose inspiration comes from a philosophical source. The Japanese art of Kingsugi uses lacquer mixed with gold to repair broken pottery, where cracks become proud reminders of the pot’s history. So here, instead of resetting damage, Kiln borrows from this thoughtful practice to bring beauty into an otherwise necessary mechanical process.

Special Attacks Are Tied to Pot Type

We mentioned it earlier, beyond basic movement and combat abilities, special attacks can vary depending on your pot design, with the development team pushing some outlandish capabilities that are perfect for the game’s most over-the-top moments. Cups can blast popping popcorn like multi-directional shrapnel, bottles can transform into projectile swords, plates hurl pies, re-orientating jugs morph into megaphones which use soundblasts to push opponents away. The list goes on, demonstrating that pot design isn’t just about survivability but what slapstick powers you can bring to the fray.

The Pottery Wheel is Fully Realised

We mentioned this earlier, too, but the pottery crafting system in Kiln goes far beyond a simple pre-match gimmick. You’ll have access to a fully-realised pottery wheel, complete with a range of tools, techniques, and decorative options. What’s most striking about this process though is in how approachable the dev team have made it. You don’t need to be a seasoned ceramicist, or indeed an experienced gamer, to get to grips with the pottery sim’s arcade-like delivery and easy-to-follow layout. No matter your artistic skill, anyone should be able to chase the most optimal builds, or to simply enjoy the creative process.

There is a Learning Curve

If there’s one lingering concern, it’s that early previewers have highlighted the game’s potential for a steep learning curve. Of course, this will vary between individuals – and might not be a problem at all – but it’s worth highlighting as everything else we’ve covered so far has pointed to Kiln being an intuitive, fun-first experience. One point of friction is in the clay-firing process, where the suggestion is that manually baking your pot in the kiln – saving it, in other words – isn’t as clear as it should be. This suggests the user experience could use a tweak, but that is easily fixable by the dev team. The core physics-based structure might take some getting used to as well, but that’s all part of the fun.

The Wedge is a Place to Show Off Creations

Outside of matches, Kiln features a dedicated social space known as The Wedge. This lobby allows you to show off your pottery designs with other players. Furthermore, you can also practice your pottery skills, decorate vessels, and generally hang out. There’s a shop here too, where you can spend chips earned in matches on extra stickers, glazes, and decorations.

Release Date, Platforms, and Price

Kiln will release on April 23rd to PS5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC via Steam. Pricewise, you’re looking at $19.99 for the base game and $29.99 for the Fired-Up Edition which includes extra cosmetics to decorate your creations. Also, the game is included on Game Pass day one.

PC Requirements

Minimum PC requirements, as per Kiln’s Steam page, list an Intel Core i5-9400 or AMD Ryzen 5 1600 CPU, GeForce GTX 1650 or AMD Radeon RX 570 GPU, and 16GB RAM. Recommended hardware, however, includes Intel Core Ultra 5 225 or AMD Ryzen 7 5700X CPU, GeForce RTX 4060 Ti or AMD Radeon RX 7700 XT GPU, and 32GB RAM. Storage space required is 8GB.

Aside from being free, we don’t see a reason why you wouldn’t want to get into this one. The unique visuals and a very fun vibe underline the absurd premise of spirits having the ability to craft and inhabit clay pots. These will then partake in 4v4 battles where you try to douse your opponent’s kiln with water. You do that with basic attacks but also have access to special moves depending on your pot’s shape.

Preorders are now live, and you get a generous amount of goodies, which includes Stickers, Glazes, and Sword and Ink Lids, all of which are cool ways to make the pots you craft truly your own. Of course, there’s an in-game store with a lot more options, and Double Fine Productions has promised microstransactions locking you out of getting them.

All in all, it looks like this one’s going to be quite the entertainer if you’re in the market for something different. The trailer’s below if you want to take a look.

Kiln launches on April 23rd for Xbox Series X/S, PS5, and PC.

In case you missed its announcement during this year’s Xbox Developer_Direct, Kiln is a team-based multiplayer brawler where players use a detailed sculpting system to create pots. These pots then engage in 4v4 objective-based battles, carrying water to extinguish the enemy team’s kiln in the only available mode, Quench.

As silly (and yet, on-brand) as it sounds, pot creation is about more than just aesthetics. Depending on its shape, you can take advantage of different abilities, like crawling under low arches with a smaller pot. Things can get pretty messy, which contributes to the game’s “destruction” selling point. Of course, there’s also a hub called The Wedge where players can further customize their pots.

While multiplayer titles tend to miss more than hit (see FBC: Firebreak and the recent Highguard), Kiln isn’t just a one-off project. It will receive more content post-launch, though Double Fine has yet to detail exactly what players should expect. Stay tuned for more updates in the meantime.

A new report by The Verge’s Tom Warren alleged release dates for several big titles, including Halo: Campaign Evolved targeting this Summer. Gears of War: E-Day, another 2026 release, is reportedly looking at the second half of the year. As already announced, Fable will arrive this Fall, but you can expect it sometime before November 19th, which is when Rockstar’s magnum opus finally launches.

As for Kiln, Double Fine’s pottery-meets-competitive-multiplayer title, it’s apparently launching in April – just one month before Forza Horizon 6. Based on the lack of rumors about Clockwork Revolution, State of Decay 3 and so on, it seems likely that they’ll launch next year.

In the meantime, Microsoft doesn’t just have to work out the releases for its biggest games, but also their marketing. It would lend credence to rumors of another Developer_Direct to go along with its usual Summer showcase and Gamescom presence. Still, it wouldn’t be surprising to see it drop extensive overviews and other announcements out of the blue (like the rumored PS5 release of Starfield).

Here’s hoping that a potential price increase for the Xbox Series X/S isn’t one of them.

Meant to marry the cathartic acts of creation and destruction, you can start as a spirit who can manipulate clay to fashion a new body. You can then venture into Quench, a 4v4 mode about carrying water into enemy territory to douse their kiln. Of course, enemy players don’t like that, so you need to smash them.

Each pot has rudimentary moves such as running, jumping, attacking, and rolling, but different shapes have unique special moves. Their shapes also come in handy when traversing unique parts of the maps, based on fractured pieces of history. Some pots may have access to secret tunnels, and you can also pour water to erect sponge walls.

After every match, you return to the lobby, called the Wedge, to unlock new options with XP and Chips. Kiln is launching this Spring for Xbox Series X/S, PC, and PS5, with a closed beta coming soon. Double Fine will also support it post-launch with additional content.

Double Fine Productions has uploaded an entirely new episode of the documentary out of nowhere on its official YouTube channel. At over 90 minutes long, the feature-length episode is described as an epilogue for the series. You can view it below. 

Meanwhile, in addition to the new episode, Double Fine has also announced that it is collaborating with Limited Run Games to release a physical Blu-ray set of Double Fine PsychOdyssey. The Blu-ray set will include all episodes of the series (including the new epilogue), an 80-page booklet that will follow the documentary’s series from the perspective of its makers at 2 Player Productions, and two bonus discs with a collection of extended interviews, backer updates, deleted scenes, promotional videos, and never-before-seen content. 

Additionally, you can also expect deleted scenes, all-new interviews with members of the Psychonauts 2 development team, previously unseen internal footage of Psychonauts 2 gameplay from various stages of development, and more. 

The catch, however, is that the Blu-ray set is going to be a limited edition set. Limited Run Games will be selling just 2,000 copies of the set. A release date has yet to be announced, but you can pre-order it now, until August 25.

Taking to Twitter, Double Fine recently teased “cool things in store” that it says it will “share when we’re ready”. Along with those nebulous “cool things”, the studio is also making plans for its upcoming 25th anniversary – which is coming up in July – which means there is, in Double Fine’s words, “tons of fun on the way.” The official Xbox account responded to the studio’s tweet with the good old googly eyes emoji.

What exactly the developer has been cooking up in the time since Psychonauts 2’s release is anyone’s guess, though Double Fine boss Tim Schafer previously confirmed that the studio wasn’t working on another Psychonauts sequel, and was instead turning its attention to smaller projects.

Recent leaks have claimed that Double Fine Productions’ next game will be revealed (and possibly shadow dropped) at an alleged upcoming Xbox Developer Direct, so there’s a chance we get a clearer picture of what the future has in store for the studio not long from now. Stay tuned for any and all updates in the coming weeks.

https://twitter.com/Xbox/status/1742655867596472554

That’s as per Spanish YouTuber eXtas1s, who has claimed that Microsoft is planning another Developer Direct presentation. Allegedly, the company will show off games like Senua’s Saga: Hellblade 2 and Towerborne at the event, while it’s claimed that Psychonauts developer Double Fine Productions’ next game will also be announced.

The leaker goes on to claim that a game will also be shadow dropped at the event, similar to how Hi-Fi Rush was last year. There may, however, be slight differences, so the game in question might release within a few weeks of its reveal at the event rather than on the same day. As per eXtas1s, the game in question will be Double Fine’s aforementioned project, which the leaker speculates could be KILN, which Microsoft filed a trademark for last year.

If the company does indeed plan on holding the event in January (as it did last year), it shouldn’t be too long before it makes an official announcement. Stay tuned for more updates in the coming days.

https://twitter.com/extas1stv/status/1742348810838249651