Double Fine has been on a tear with its smaller projects lately. The popular indie game developer is following up last year’s atmospheric adventure game Keeper with a new title in a totally different direction. As its Double Fine founder Tim Schaefer attempted to say five times fast during today’s Xbox Developer Direct, Kiln is an “online multiplayer pottery party brawler” that boasts exactly the sort of colorful, clever fun that fans have come to expect from the studio.
Kiln is a game with two facets: creation and destruction. On the creation side, players get to design a ceramic vessel of their choosing, anything from a dainty saucer to a massive vat. From the clips showed, this riff on character creation imitates many of the real processes of throwing on the wheel. There are options to decorate your vessel with glazes and stickers for additional personalization.
Once you’ve made your pottery creation, it’s time to destroy it. The game mode that Double Fine showed off during the Developer Direct is called Quench. In these capture-the-flag style matches, your teammates are trying to carry water in the vessels they’ve designed to the enemy’s kiln, where the goal is to douse its flames before opponents can do the same to yours. Different vessel types have different attacks for smashing enemy ceramics to shards, so there can be a strategic angle to building up a smart team composition with a mix of defensive and offensive capabilities.
Kiln looks like a really fun time, and it is due out in spring 2026. The game will be available on Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5 and Steam, as well as through Xbox programs such as Game Pass Ultimate and Xbox Cloud Gaming.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/gaming/double-fine-announces-delightful-looking-multiplayer-pottery-game-kiln-195837155.html?src=rss
