Today’s Xbox Developer Direct had a secret fourth game alongside the three confirmed titles: Kiln, a new game from Double Fine Productions. It can best be described as “an online multiplayer pottery party brawler” to use the words of Tim Schafer. Players battle it out as various pieces of crockery, with the freedom to customize their own appearance via the game’s crafting system. Kiln launches in spring 2026 for PC, Xbox and PlayStation consoles.
Double Fine noted the game’s history in the Developer Direct: It was created as part of the 2017 Amnesia Fortnight game jam by project lead Derek Brand. Players are formless spirits, who find bodies via the game’s pottery wheel and hub world, The Wedge. According to the developers, the player’s earthenware form directly influences their combat abilities. The more clay, the bigger the pot, the slower and tougher the player — and the inverse is also true.
In gameplay, player pots are divided into teams, attempting to douse each other’s kilns while protecting their own. Their shapes determine how much water they’re able to hold in addition to how much damage they do. The maps are also themed around various deities of Ancient Greece and Ancient Egypt, along with a mysterious deity called Celadon (who I don’t believe is a real-life figure of worship from either place, but I could be wrong).
Brand said in an interview with Xbox Wire: “The whole pottery part is such that it grabs people who might not want to jump into a multiplayer game. Some people just want to try pot making. And if we can, we just slowly ease them into the ‘I want to punch something now with this pot.’ We don’t want it to be a hard shift from those two things.”