Rock climbing and mountaineering are some of those great adventure things I love the idea of, but I’d end up killing myself doing it. In recent years, several games have finally started exploring that vein of adventure. There are a variety of games, including Jusant, Grow Home, I’ll include Getting Over It because of the internet, Peak, and of course, Ander Grube Jensen’s beautiful Peaks of Yore. The next game from the developers of Furi and Haven is exactly that, and done in a beautiful French/Franco-Belgian art style that made me fall in love instantly. Cairn was one of those instant wishlists after seeing it, and it wasn’t just the art style that did it.

You play as Aava, as voiced by Sophia Eleni from Call the Midwife, D&D: Honor Among Thieves, and Assassin’s Creed Mirage. Aava plans to be the first person to scale and summit Mount Kami with only whatever skill I have as a player and the equipment she has or is able to find. Despite X, Y, and Z infrastructure on the mountain, such as a crumbling cable car system and snack machines, 159 people have reportedly died in the attempt to ascend the sheer rock faces.

One part survival and one part puzzle, as you figure out where you can and can’t climb, Cairn is something I love in gaming. Be it Spider-Man 2 for the PS2, Grow Home and Grow Up, to a degree Titanfall 2, SSX games, Rocket League, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater games, and so on, these are games that are about movement and get movement right. Cairn is another one, plus the mind-numbing idea of: It is 3 AM, and I’m about to scream at the top of my lungs because I’ve fallen and I’m on my last piton before a save point.

It might sound like I’m drumming up things to again draw that tired “Dark Souls of X” comparison, but I’m not, even if the frustration is there. Cairn employs a lot of “interesting” ideas to feed both the excitement and rush of dopamine you get when a climb goes well, but most importantly, it uses those moments of frustration to fuel it the most. The easiest way to explain that is simply the save system in the default difficulty, where you worry about equipment, survival, and health. You can, however, repair equipment, eat and drink, and save at each bivouac point; a makeshift shelter, tent.

At times, each point to construct your bivy and save can be 15-25 minutes away, sometimes closer for certain story elements. So if you’re still in those early points, learning the game and how to properly climb, how the game expects you to play, and so on, you can fall and die, losing 20 minutes of progress. You can also play on an ultra hardcore “I beat Malenia first try, no hits, no flasks, solo run” mode, or you could get a life and enjoy things for what they are. Sure, I know I’ve just annoyed half the internet with that, whoopty doo!

Of course, that’s kind of the point of Cairn, and the title alone kind of gives away something of the plot. Aava isn’t new to this whole climbing thing, and it is sort of hinted that she’s tried to do this once or twice before as a test run. Now is the time, and as she does, as the reminders of all those who died before and the cairns made for those who come after, she fights through messages from home, personal and professional, as well as the doubts that she’ll actually summit Kami.

I’ve been asked not to spoil too much, but I’ll say that there are elements of the story that reminded me of a few Annapurna Interactive game experiences. That said, the main point of the plot is focused on Aava and her partner Noami, with the plot striking a little too close to home at times to push through. Didn’t get me to the point of tears, but certainly had me getting up and walking away for five minutes – mostly to be screamed at for more food by the reason it did affect me.

Story-wise, Cairn gets a lot right, especially in those early few hours. Aava is frustrated with messages interrupting her, and to a degree, that’s how it can sometimes feel as a player when cutscenes get in the way; several messages interrupting your flow. That said, the pacing of the later hours becomes a little too slow at times, which might be to represent the struggle of reaching that summit. However, I think by that point, you are invigorated more than ever to touch the peak and grab hold of that goal you’ve been working towards the whole time. 9 hours by my count.

My point is, seeing the summit within reach made me want it more, yet the toll it takes on the body had to be represented somehow. Climbing Kami barefoot for the majority of the time and not wearing gloves, the survival gameplay isn’t just heat, food, and water. You have a health bar that slowly depletes with each step on the surface of the mountain and with each climb you make. Running or speed-walking lowers your health faster. Aava’s feet are bloody, and her hands constantly have to be tended to with tape to improve climbing conditions.

More importantly, you’ll find plastic bags, disused bottles, tin cans, and such, which can be processed by your climbing bot to make chalk to further improve grip. There are a lot of systems at play; cooking certain things together creates different buffs, and plants collected can help along the way. As much as I typically hate games that rely so much on survival mechanics, I can’t say a bad word about Cairn’s way around survival. Ok, maybe one thing: Water and heat in that final push are difficult to maintain.

Besides that, I don’t have issues with Cairn. Though I can’t say that I’d recommend it to everyone either. Depending on your use or willingness to embrace accessibility/assists, Cairn can be more than just difficult. In fact, if you’re headstrong and don’t want to learn climbing, particularly how Cairn does it, you’ll get very easily frustrated. I Alt+F4’d my way out on what would have been two deaths that didn’t exactly feel “earned.” They didn’t feel earned because what little you’re taught is controls and easy climbs in a gym, followed by the very bottom of the mountain.

It helps to know body position so you aren’t stressing muscles, something Cairn wants you to know but doesn’t exactly teach with a pure focus. Once you’ve placed pitons, you can off-belay and gain stamina back, or you can press Y/Triangle to gain a small bit of stamina back. However, finding a path, finding a way that’s not too stressful on Aava’s body and doing so without that frustration is all something you have to learn on your own. If there is something I do love, it is the ability to learn as I play. Though, as much as I enjoy Cairn, that sort of patience isn’t for everyone.

The accessibility options available allow you to focus on what you want to focus on, but even then, it doesn’t drastically make everything easier. Mostly to avoid throwing my controller through a brick wall, I’d opted to turn on the rewind falls option in those final 2 or so hours; if you fall off the mountain, you time-travel back of your own accord. That said, I did encounter a bug where I fell through the mountain’s surface after 4 hours of playing and after I’d switched this feature on, ultimately causing all the lighting and/or textures to go straight to hell with it.

Thankfully, that was only 15-odd minutes after a save, and a reload the next day was fine, but it is no less frustrating to be close and have such a bug. I would also say something about the performance, but I do know there is still work being done on that in the days before release, so I’ll keep it brief. Meeting or exceeding the recommended specs did see minor drops in frame rate here or there, though we’re told there has been issues being worked on with Nvidia graphics cards, and that may well be the reason.

I’ve seen comments about dreadful performance in the demo long ago, but the majority of the time I’ve played this release, I played at 60 frames per second. It seemed that when there was a split-second dip on the handful of occasions, it was in busy areas or something was being loaded. Are there people who want 4K ultra-wide, ultra ray-traced toe nails peeling off at 180 FPS? Of course, but they are the psychos who hang actual swords above their headboard.

Controls-wise, there isn’t really much to complain about other than the odd frustration with spidery limbs and the odd misplacement. A time or two, to return to that “unearned” death comment, I’d try to maneuver Aava’s body into a decent position to find a stable foothold for her to rest comfortably, only to find either the controller movement wasn’t as precise or the lighting and art direction wasn’t helping with depth perception. It is a minor issue to have if I’m honest, and as I say, there is a reason I played for 4 hours straight one night.

I’ve mentioned a few climbing-related games at the start, but few have this proper feeling of danger and getting things right while also fighting the elements. Being able to press L1/LB on the controller and see the path you’d taken up the mountain, every moment tracked back, seeing the moments you stopped for one reason or another, it feels rewarding. Not to take away from the others mentioned, but I think only Peaks of Yore does that as well as Cairn, that sense of triumph as you complete a climb. It isn’t the real thing, but it does it beautifully.

Ultimately, Cairn’s focus on gameplay and learning first without making it near impossible, just frustrating, is where I think it stands out beautifully. Some might find elements of the story to get in the way, and Aava isn’t a character you’ll love for the next 30 years, but it serves a master in giving you a purpose. What I’d love, and I don’t often say this of games now, is if there were more games just like Cairn, to scale mountains in just as difficult and frustrating systems that feel just as rewarding.

A PC review copy of Cairn Deluxe Edition was provided by The Game Bakers for this review.

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Cairn

$29.99

8.5

Score

8.5/10

Pros

• Simple, yet engaging climbing mechanics.
• A proper challenge to complete at times.
• A story that struck a personal chord, a little too close to home at times.

Cons

• The pacing in those final couple of hours is lacking the crescendo.