Cairn: A Brutal, Beautiful Struggle Against the Mountain
- Antal Bokor
- 2 days ago
- 4 min read
We are, seemingly, in the middle of a climbing game renaissance. Following the meditative flow of Jusant in 2023 and the high-stakes co-op of 2025’s Peak, Cairn arrives to offer yet another distinct perspective on the ascent. These games aren’t just copying each other; instead, they focus on vastly different aspects of the vertical journey.
Developer The Game Bakers describes Cairn as a “realistic simulation.” It’s not a simulation in a funny Goat Simulator way–I think those “sims” mostly died off. And it’s not super technical in a way you would expect super old-school “simulator” titles were. But it does use super persnickety and technical climbing as its main mechanic while tracking hunger, thirst, warmth, and a hybrid of health/stamina. So that’s sim-like, right?
I’m not trying to bash Cairn, or any claims the developers made. In fact, outside of dedicated survival games like The Long Dark, I haven’t had such high stakes as I did in Cairn. Even if you have a route plotted out, you can make a mistake that ends with you falling to your death. And even if you’re not playing in a permanent death mode, dying can set you back a long time because of how sparse the save points can be. One lapse of judgment or moment of being impatient can quickly lead to a slip and deadly fall.
The first thing I’m going to talk about is the climbing mechanics–because that’s what sets Cairn apart from its contemporaries. Cairn employs a system that requires you to place one limb at a time. It’s “simplified” by having the limbs selected sequentially automatically and being placed with a single button (“X” on controller). For ultimate control you can even select limbs individually, though that feels a bit unwieldy.
Unlike climbing in other games where your character will snap onto handholds automatically, Cairn requires you to carefully place your hands and/or feet manually. This means having to reach for handholds, and hope the ledge you’re putting your foot on is wide enough. This can lead to some interesting climbing scenarios–such as bracing lead character Aava against a rock to chimney up a cliff.
This also leads to some hilarious limb contortions and leg placements. Before I got really good at climbing, I would frequently have Aava going into what can only be described as a “crazy legs” state. This happened often enough that my observing wife started calling Aava “ol’ crazy legs.”
She’s not entirely wrong. But just because the climbing can lead to some meme-worthy moments doesn’t mean it doesn’t feel good in a tactile way. Which it does. In fact, I found myself so engrossed with placements and handholds that I was holding my breath until Aava was able to get to the next ledge, or place a vital piton.
That doesn’t mean that the climbing is perfect, however. Some of my biggest frustrations came from Aava being unable to realize she’s standing on a ledge, so instead of rising to her feet, she is stuck crawling and grasping when a normal person would just stand up. I lost significant progress once because Aava became exhausted while not realizing she was on a ledge, which led to her going into a ragdoll state and rolling slowly off of a cliff. It would have been tragic if it wasn’t so hilarious looking. At worst, climbing can feel like QWOP. But once you acquire a good rhythm and understanding of how it works, it’s fantastic.
Cairn isn’t just about the climb; it’s about the metabolic cost of the ascent. To keep Aava alive, you have to manage hunger, hydration, and exhaustion—often by scavenging supplies from the packs of dead climbers or rooting through garbage left by previous expeditions.
This brings me to my main issue with the game's "realism": Aava’s baffling lack of preparation. Why would a professional climber start a summit attempt without a calculated supply loadout? A mechanic centered on pack weight versus calorie density would have been fascinating. Instead, the game relies on standard video game survival tropes where you’re forced to forage as you go. It’s a missed opportunity, but it does force you to be strategic.
The game isn’t only about survival, either. It’s about Aava, who is going through her own emotional journey. Aava is a pro climber with a very "climb punk” character design. I feel like she’s a character in a horror story that, if you unwound her bandages, would fall apart into a mess of limbs.
Emotionally–and this is a crux of the story and Aava’s character development–she is more of a mess of mental health issues. Aava’s frustration often shows through, and it frequently felt like she was getting mad at me for my failures. She yells, screams, and practically throws tantrums when the mountain pushes back. It creates a strange dissonance; the badass, solo-climbing professional persona is hard to maintain when the character seems as tightly wound as her bandaged body.
While this volatility is clearly an intentional narrative choice to show her unraveling, it can be off-putting to watch a supposed expert lose her composure so consistently.
And of course there’s Kami, the mountain that’s never been summited before. The mountain itself has stories to tell, and they’re mostly told through encountering historical sites, coming across letters left behind, or finding dead climbers. For a mountain that’s never been summited, there is crap everywhere.
This game touts the “leave no trace” principle of outdoors living–one that I stand by personally–but shows an outdoors full of abandoned buildings and garbage strewn everywhere. It’s not exactly unrealistic, but it’s as disappointing to see it in the game as in real life.
Cairn isn’t a perfect game, but it’s a game that does a good job of balancing emotional impact and climbing gameplay that requires patience and attention to detail. I’m still not 100 percent sold on the climbing mechanic, but I really like the idea behind it. Maybe a sequel or another game will take the idea and make it work a bit better. But it’s a fun game, and one that had me absolutely absorbed for hours.