Kiln review: Trial by fire

Double Fine's pottery party brawler is a refreshingly original game.

In Xbox’s sea of acquired game studios, Double Fine Productions has emerged as one of its most unique. A studio always excited to offer something new, Double Fine’s latest game, Kiln, is about possessed pottery doing battle.

Taking shape

In Kiln, you play as a ghost-like avatar that inhabits pottery, using them as a vessel to attack enemies and defend your turf. Before going into battle, you’ll need to actually create your own pot from a ball of clay. You can use your hands to create a rough shape, and then go back over it to make any fine tweaks and adjustments. The height, width, and shape of your pot is entirely up to you.

As you work your magic on the pottery wheel, you can see how your pot will perform in battle. Larger, wider pots can hold more water, but have a smaller health pool. Smaller, more compact builds have more health (and the ability to squeeze through shortcuts around the map) at the sacrifice of water capacity.

Starting out, my ceramic builds were pretty basic shapes that I hastily slapped together. However, as you level up, you unlock more ways to customize your designs both cosmetically and structurally. There are a great deal of tools that can be used to make pots that not only look awesome, but give you a strong foundation in battles.

Created pots can be added to your shelf, and pots on your shelf can be selected when in-game. This is where Kiln starts to reveal its strategic depth. As a team game, your squad must have some sort of composition or coordination between your builds. If you all rush out with small, scrappy pots, you’ll struggle to play the objective. If nobody is prepared to sit back with a tankier build, it’ll be open season on your base. I loved that in between matches, I could copy and save other builds from nearby players, as they were typically far more creative than I.

Quench your thirst

Kiln’s core game mode is called Quench. In Quench, two teams of four compete to “quench” the other team’s kiln by dousing it with water. Once a kiln’s fire has been completely doused three times, that team is defeated. Players grab water from around the map and bring it to their opponent's base to spray their kiln, but other players can defend their base by smashing enemy pots.

If you play Kiln by simply charging into the enemy’s base with a pot full of water, you’ll probably get smashed to bits every time. The key to success is to learn the map, watch what other players are doing, and strike when the opportunity presents itself. I found success by traveling with at least one teammate. Players will often adopt a “goalie” role, holding fort in front of their Kiln to protect it from opposing players. However, barging in with a teammate allowed one of us to create a distraction while the other doused the burning kiln.

I also learned to keep tabs on ability cooldowns. Each pot shape automatically corresponds to a different signature ability, like a tornado spin or sword swing. These abilities take several seconds to cool down, so once an enemy used one in battle, I knew I could slip past them and make a run at their kiln without suffering too much damage.

I loved how intense matches could get when both teams’ kilns were down to their final bar of health. It becomes a mad dash to fling as much water as possible, with players desperately sprinting and rolling past one another. There’s a real feeling of momentum when your team racks up back-to-back eliminations in these scenarios, or when your all-in gambit to assault a kiln falls short.

Double Fine has already stated its intention to add more ways to play Kiln in the future, but I couldn’t help but feel limited by its single mode. The concept and execution are done so well, it’d be nice to see it expanded to other formats. It’s also a miss that the game doesn’t have any sort of private match or non-PvP co-op, considering that Kiln is, by its own definition, a party game.

Ceramic friends

I played Kiln on PC via Steam, and it controlled well on both PC and controller. While the game does support ultrawide, I noticed some pretty substantial performance drops on my mid-range rig. That said, playing in a 16:9 resolution seemed to assuage the issue.

Kiln is the latest example of one of gaming’s most creative studios executing well on a fresh idea. There may be a couple of aspects that could’ve used more time in the oven, but Double Fine’s Kiln is a cool and quirky addition to Xbox’s 2026 lineup.

This review is based on a Steam code provided by the publisher. Kiln is available now on Xbox Series X|S, PS5, and PC.

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Review for
Kiln
8
Pros

• Fun original idea
• Rich customization options
• Great competitive format

Cons

• Only one game mode
• No private matches