Kiln

I came into Kiln expecting gimmick-first, substance-never. What I found instead was a genuinely original mechanical hook wrapped around a multiplayer skeleton that needed six more months in the oven. The core idea holds up: you sculpt your own vessel on a pottery wheel between respawns, and that shape is your entire character sheet. A flat plate ricochets off enemies like a hockey puck. A tall vase carries more water to the enemy kiln but moves like a top-heavy shopping trolley. A small nimble cup zips through gaps and causes chaos but shatters if anyone breathes on it wrong. The two-button clay system is tactile, surprisingly readable, and the fact that you can switch forms mid-match to fill a different role is the kind of flexible design that keeps competitive games alive. That part, Double Fine nailed. The mode is called Quench: two teams of four collect water from the centre of the map and dump it into the opposing team's kiln three times to win. On paper it reads like a simplified MOBA objective, and in practice that comparison holds. Respawns are fast, individual fights matter less than water control, and keeping a defender back at your kiln is the correct play that nobody on random matchmaking ever does. Body posture adds a second layer, standing upright gives control, flopping sideways trades dignity for speed and lets you slip through tight spaces, and once a coordinated group actually engages with these systems, there is a real tactical layer here. Chalice builds with hurricane abilities, hourglass shapes that slow nearby enemies, cauldron forms that drop poison puddles near your kiln: the build variety is more interesting than the art style suggests. Here is the problem, and it is not a small one. Netcode at launch drew harsh criticism across multiple outlets, with some reviewers describing it as genuinely unacceptable for a title published under the Xbox Game Studios umbrella. Melee targeting is inconsistent, which in a brawler is about as bad as it gets. The map pool at launch is thin, reviewers were calling layouts familiar by level five, and there is exactly one mode. One. Progression past level ten is mostly cosmetic stickers that feel low-effort compared to what a Double Fine art team could have produced. No local co-op, no ranked ladder, no meaningful reason to push past the unlock ceiling. The pottery creation side is the purest win here. Tools like the sponge, ruler, and shaper unlock with progression and let you go deeper than the cartoony exterior promises. Watching a vessel morph in real time is genuinely satisfying, and the community sharing system where you can adopt another player's design and win with it is a small but smart social feature. The NPC cast, particularly Celadon, who compliments every creation you bring her with specific detail, has that unmistakable Double Fine warmth. It does not fix the structural problems, but it means the game's identity is intact even when the netcode is not. For Game Pass subscribers or anyone with four friends ready to squad up, there is a fun, weird 20-hour party game here. For solo queue players who care about competitive integrity, latency, or content-per-dollar, the launch state is hard to defend. Double Fine has signalled intent to add modes and maps post-launch, and the bones of something worthwhile are clearly present. Right now, though, the kiln fired too soon.

Fred · Scout Team

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