If you’ve been eager to start smacking clay, breaking pots, and quenching fires in Double Fine’s multiplayer online pottery party brawler, the wait is almost over: Kiln launches everywhere on April 23. Sign up now if you’d like to get in on the action even sooner and participate in the open beta.

We’ve been charmed by Kiln’s unique game loop and scrappy development journey all year, so it was exciting to be a fly-on-the-wall observer for several hours of its first public play sessions at the recent Day of the Devs event adjacent to GDC in San Francisco. People cycled in to spend a few minutes exploring the game’s social space (and were particularly encouraged to get onto the pottery wheel and try shaping a pot) before being pulled into a full 4v4 match on one of three maps, then letting new people try.

In Kiln, you shape a small, medium, or large ball of clay into a vessel on a pottery wheel with surprisingly intuitive controls. The size and shape of the vessel determines its stats (like health and capacity for water) and special ability (with different abilities corresponding to shapes like bowls, chalices, bottles, etc.). Decorate with various glazes and cosmetic attachments (all for style), and you’re good to go. The matches comprise two teams of four pots competing to gather water and quench the other team’s kiln three times before the same is done to theirs, breaking enemy pots along the way in chaotic brawls.

Feel of the Wheel

First and foremost, people of all ages were delighted by the pottery wheel, particularly (though by no means exclusively) kids. Early on, a young woman exclaimed to her observing friend, “this is SO fun, as someone who actually does pottery!” The pottery system allowed players to pour as much or as little care and attention into it as they want, and I’m excited to see what the wider public does with it.

There are a wide range of themed attachments that lend themselves to natural sets, allowing easy entry for people to start playing around with designs. Early on in the quieter media and VIP session, someone spent a while making an imposingly large crab pot with an eye stalks topper and four spouts tipped with lobster claws, which remained a popular selection on that station for later games (players will normally get to build out their own pottery collection, taking a favorite three into any given battle).

There’s also a high ceiling for more subtle creativity with the tools available. One of my favorite designs from the day was deceptively simple, shaping a sphere and glazing successively smaller circles to create a big, freaky eyeball that really stood out on the battlefield.

The Art of Smashing and Splashing

That balance of a low floor for entry and a high ceiling for mastery applies just as much to the brawling as it does to the creative side of Kiln’s loop. Everyone that I observed picked up the controls quickly and easily and had a great time just jumping in to mess around, but there are so many variables between the pottery and the maps that more dedicated players will have no shortage of things to learn and explore.

I’m far from alone in having Overwatch on the brain lately after its big recent refresh, but other players and even developers agreed that Kiln bears interesting comparison to Blizzard’s iconic hero shooter. When an observer brought it up, Kiln community manager Rocio Salas elaborated that the faster-attacking smaller pots are like DPS and large, slow, powerful pots are like tanks, which I observed to be brutal on defense. And while there aren’t any healing abilities, certain shapes have more tactical and support-oriented powers, like an area-of-effect slow that can set up the rest of your team to finish the job.

The main connection I drew between the two games was the importance of playing the objective, rather than getting lost in the sauce of fighting the other team. Games of Kiln are won or lost by quenching the enemy base, and your KDR is just for bragging rights. The most effective playmakers that I saw were usually small to medium pots that just quickly and quietly snuck around the side to focus on quenching the enemy kiln while the rest of both teams got caught up fighting.

That lines up with Salas telling me that her favorite way to play is with a small bottle for its speed, as well as its dynamite ability, which she uses both aggressively and as a way to tactically disengage, speaking to the game’s mechanical nuance. In the one match I played that day, I found myself using the sword dash just as often to quickly reposition and cut someone off as I did to try and hit them directly.

Delightful Chaos

Maps also play an enormous role in the flow of a match, with quite different structures from one to another, as well as game-shaping gimmicks. The shortest matches I observed were typically on Set’s Basement Mosh Pit, the most linear map, themed after a grungy rock club, with a single lane directly between the two bases that’s centered around a periodically descending mosh pit, which serves as the main source of water. Athena’s War Room and Dionysus’ Boogie Lounge were much more wide open with more ground to cover and room to get distracted, leading to longer matches. Athena’s War Room also introduced sponges that could be watered to temporarily block lanes, while Dionysus’ Boogie Lounge has a disco dance floor that compels players to dance on the flashing squares for a short while.

The interplay between all the different abilities and the different maps kept matches delightfully chaotic and unpredictable. This was no doubt amplified by the structure of the event, with uncoordinated groups of strangers dropping in for single matches. There was no voice chat, but project lead Derek Brand told me that this will be true at release as well, as Double Fine understandably wants to keep things friendly.

Brand also confirmed my suspicion, however, that coordinated teams like they have long had for their internal playtests can lead to an intense, high level of play. Groups of friends will be able to circumvent Kiln’s lack of integrated voice chat, however, by partying up through the system-level Xbox social features. I’d honestly love to watch a fully commentated esports match of coordinated teams going at it.

It was a real delight to witness the charmingly untapped and chaotic meta of Kiln’s first public play sessions at Day of the Devs, and I can’t wait to see the creativity in both making and smashing pots unleashed once more people gets their hands on it soon.

Open Beta April 9-11

An open beta will also be running through Steam on April 9-11, about which Salas had the following to say:

“As an online pottery party brawler, we know we need some hands-on time with players of all kinds—and a lot of them!

We’re taking this open beta as an opportunity to not only test out our servers, but to see what resonates with players and what the Kiln team should be prioritizing next. We have a lot of possibilities with a game like Kiln—more customization, more maps, more modes—and, as much as we want to add everything we can to the game, we want to see what you, the players want the most.

So your playtesting, your feedback, and your reactions are going to be the most important things for us as we head into launch!

And then, once you’ve had a taste for the fun, we hope to see you all on launch day, April 23! We’re so excited to see what people build and how they play!”

Pre-orders will go live at open beta as well for both the standard ($19.99) and Fired Up ($29.99) editions. The Fired Up edition includes the base game as well as premium glazes, stickers, attachments, custom pots, and bonus chips (customization-unlocking currency that can only be earned through playing the game).

Kiln launches on April 23 for 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.

Kiln

Xbox Game Studios

☆☆☆☆☆

★★★★★

Kiln is a pottery power-fantasy that celebrates both Creativity and Destruction: the pleasure that comes from both making beautiful things, and then smashing those things to smithereens. Create your pot, grab your friends, and join a team of colorful spirits who face off against one another in online arenas, where the ceramic creations you sculpt on a pottery wheel become the bodies you bring into battle.

The shape of your pots affect your attributes and your play-style. Will you be big, or small? Wide, or tall? Will you make a plate, a jug, a cup or a bowl?

There are a multitude of different sizes and combinations to discover, each with unique abilities and attacks, along with new and surprising ways to play. Work together to find the best combination of pots and play-styles to break through enemy lines, and collect enough water to douse the flames of the enemy’s kiln — Does your team have what it takes to shape and smash your way to victory? As the battlefield becomes strewn with the shattered fragments of friend and foes alike, your brawling skills and some great teamwork will be required to assure victory.

After the battle is won, head to The Wedge to practice your pottery prowess, decorate your pots to make them yours, then share your creations with others (and admire their handiwork, too).

Create and Destroy Together – Making pots and breaking pots are both better with friends. Hang out, experiment with clay and share what you make, or jump right into multiplayer battles and start swinging!

Become a Master Potter– Manipulate realistic clay to craft and decorate in an immersive pottery wheel experience featuring a variety of tools and techniques.