“People come in and give us feedback as the game’s in development, really shining a light on areas we need to improve – things real players are seeing that, as developers, we might be too close to notice,” Scott says.

Xbox Game Studios helps build bridges

Though Double Fine regularly engaged with the gaming industry through local meetups and international events such as the Game Developers Conference, they rarely worked with other indie studios or tapped those studios’ resources.

Microsoft provided financial stability, but it also helped Double Fine build connections to other studios.

“There are always studios like us who were kind of like islands in the sea before. But now we have these bridges between us so we can talk and share stories,” Schafer says.

UK-based Rare, the makers of Sea of Thieves, is lending a hand on Kiln by sharing their experience of building a community, creating beta programs and fostering post-launch player engagement. Double Fine has also connected with Obsidian on the game and shared notes.

“They can go learn from other teams that might have expertise and best practices, all the way to hands-on help,” says Mary McGuane, a studio general manager at Xbox Game Studios who oversees five different game studios, including Double Fine. “There’s a whole collective of studios that are rooting for their success and contributing to it.”

There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to the studios, she adds, but the through line is clear: Don’t lose what makes the company and culture unique.

For Double Fine, says lead designer Scott, that’s the studio’s focus on the experimental and weird, pushing the boundaries of the medium, both technically and artistically, and solving hard problems.

“I’m working somewhere where the main goal is to contribute to the game medium in a meaningful and interesting way.”

This story was published on April 23, 2026. All photos and screenshots courtesy of Double Fine Productions.

Kiln, Double Fine’s upcoming multiplayer online pottery party brawler, launches on April 23 – including Xbox Series X|S, Xbox on PC, Xbox Cloud, PlayStation 5, Steam, and with Xbox Game Pass Ultimate. It will be an Xbox Play Anywhere title, and arrive Handheld Optimized.

Shop select Windows 11 PCs and unlock the Ultimate College Bundle from Microsoft—giving eligible students everything they need for a full year of productivity, creativity and play, all in one purchase.

Offer ends June 30, 2026. Eligibility requirements apply, and students will need to verify their academic status using their college .edu email address. Redemption requires a Microsoft account and following the provided steps after purchase of a qualifying PC.

Read more about Double Fine and Kiln

For more than a decade, Athima Chansanchai has covered people, projects and products throughout Microsoft. Now, she focuses on gaming for non-gamers and Windows Blogs. Previously, Athima wrote news and feature stories for MSNBC.com, The Seattle Post-Intelligencer, The Baltimore Sun and The Village Voice. You can contact Athima on LinkedIn.