Kiln Is Out Now — Double Fine's Pottery Brawler Is the Weirdest Game Pass Addition of the Year

The pitch sounds like the result of a very productive fever dream: use a virtual pottery wheel to sculpt a clay vessel, then bring that vessel to life as your fighter in a 4v4 arena brawler where the shapes you make determine your stats, abilities, and playstyle, and the goal is to smash your opponents' creations to pieces while protecting your kiln. That's Kiln, Double Fine Productions' newest game, and it launched today on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox on PC, Xbox Cloud Gaming, and Steam — with day-one inclusion on Xbox Game Pass Ultimate.

From Amnesia Fortnight to Full Release

The origin story is pure Double Fine. Kiln was originally conceived during one of the studio's legendary "Amnesia Fortnight" internal game jam events — a regular internal hackathon where staff spend two weeks building prototype games with complete creative freedom. The pottery brawler concept sat dormant for years before lead designer Derek Brand championed it into a full production. Half the studio's staff reportedly took actual pottery classes during development to get a feel for the medium they were simulating.

The result of that research: a physics-based pottery wheel simulation that is genuinely the most elaborate character creation system any brawler has ever shipped with. You use a two-button system to pull and squeeze raw clay into shapes — plates, bowls, bottles, vases, chalices, and more. These aren't just cosmetic choices. A flat plate acts like a hockey puck that ricochets off enemies. A tall vase carries more water but is top-heavy and slow. A small pot rolls fast and can squeeze through gaps in arena walls. The shape of your creation is your character build.

How the Game Actually Works

The primary mode is Quench, a 4v4 team competition with a deceptively simple objective: collect water inside your pot, fight through the enemy team, and be the first to douse the flames of the opposing team's kiln three times. Smaller pots attack faster. Larger pots are more powerful and can block lanes. Finding the combination that works with your team's strategy is the depth beneath the chaos.

Every run through a match will see the arena floor littered with shattered ceramic fragments — visual feedback that the game is explicitly built around as a design statement. "The pleasure that comes from making beautiful things," Double Fine's Tim Schafer said at reveal, "and then smashing those things to smithereens."

Decorations are purely cosmetic — glazes, stickers, attachments, lid designs — and the economy for unlocking them is driven by the in-game Chips currency earned through play. The pre-order Warrior-Artist Decoration Pack and the premium Fired Up Edition ($29.99 vs. base $19.99) both expand cosmetic options significantly.

The Roadmap

Double Fine published the Spring 2026 roadmap today alongside launch. Coming content includes Dinosaur Decorations as the first major cosmetic drop, additional maps beyond the five launching today, and seasonal events. The studio described April 23 as "just the beginning" — the game is explicitly positioned as a live service with regular updates planned through the year.

The launch roster includes five maps with distinct environmental features and events that can help or hinder teams, meaning map knowledge becomes meaningful in competitive play.

The Game Pass Play

At $19.99 base (or free on Game Pass), Kiln has almost no barrier to entry. For Game Pass subscribers it's a zero-cost try, and the nature of the game — pick-up-and-play accessibility with surprising depth underneath — makes it exactly the kind of title that thrives in subscription libraries. It's also Xbox Play Anywhere and Handheld Optimised, meaning it works identically on Xbox Cloud and handheld devices.

If you haven't played a Double Fine game before: Keeper, their 2025 release, was one of the most acclaimed games of the year. Psychonauts and Brütal Legend before it. This studio makes games for people who want to feel something that mainstream releases forgot how to make them feel. Kiln is that impulse applied to competitive multiplayer, which is an unusual application of Double Fine's strengths — but the concept is so singular it might just work.

Kiln is available now on PS5, Xbox Series X|S, PC, and Xbox Cloud Gaming. $19.99 / Free on Xbox Game Pass.

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