Before I sat down and really gave myself to Cairn, I really wasn’t sure what to expect beyond stress. From the outside, it’s an almost QWOP-esque climbing game. A very deliberate one. Slow. Quiet. Focused. I figured I’d admire the mechanics, respect what it was doing, and move on. But what happened next was a ten-hour emotional journey that I’ve played through two more times just to see what I missed. Each time, the emotional beats hit differently, but I fell more in love with the game with each playthrough.
What surprised me most was how emotional Cairn ended up being, and not always in the ways that I expected. Following Aava as she climbs for reasons that slowly reveal themselves over time, it’s clear almost immediately that climbing is her escape. It’s where she goes when she needs to shut the rest of the world out and deal with things alone. There’s something very real about that, and sometimes a little uncomfortable. It feels less like a hobby and more like a necessity for her.
But as much as I appreciated Aava’s story, the strongest emotions I felt didn’t always come from the narrative beats, though there are some that hit like a freight train. Most of them came from the act of isolated climbing itself. These moments of being alone on the mountain, suspended between progress and failure, surrounded by moments of absolute jaw-dropping beauty and danger. There were a few times where I genuinely had to stop and breathe, not because the game demanded it, but because I needed a second to regain my composure before I continued my climb.
After particularly long and rough stretches of climbing, the kind where every movement feels risky, and your stamina is hanging by a thread, your food and thirst meter are failing, and you are running low on pitons, there is a moment when finally pulling yourself onto a safe ledge hits hard. There’s relief, sure, but also this weird wave of emotion that’s hard to pin down. I found myself going through so many emotions, even on the shorter climbs when fear, pride, exhaustion, and an overwhelming sense of awe hit me. Sometimes all at once, especially when you look down at what you just climbed.
The climbing itself feels excellent. It’s physical and awkward in the best way. As I said, there’s almost a QWOP-like quality to it, where your limbs don’t always do exactly what you want, at least not right away. And that’s kind of the point. Sometimes your body has to look a little strange to make a move work, and Cairn lets that happen. At the same time, it never lets you cheat the system.
If you try to climb at angles that don’t make sense, your hands and feet start to suffer. While you can push yourself, it’s only so far, and the game constantly reminds you that this is still a human body clinging to rock, not a superhero. You try to climb something too steep, and your feet or hands will be sliding away, and suddenly your stamina starts to drop, Aava’s hands start to shake, and you suddenly are in a dire situation trying to hammer in that piton before her body gives out.
It’s the constant back-and-forth of making key choices that makes the climbing in Cairn feel incredibly visceral without tipping into frustration. When you fall, and you will, it always feels like a mistake you made, whether it be pushing too far without using a piton or just the path you chose.
“It’s the constant back-and-forth of making key choices that makes the climbing in Cairn feel incredibly visceral without tipping into frustration.”
Speaking of pushing yourself too far, hunger, thirst, warmth; they’re all here as survival mechanics, but they don’t feel like busywork, as the amount of items you can get or cook to help mitigate these really have a certain ebb and flow to them. It helps that during the tougher, longer climbs when you go past your limit, the items you cooked or found, like tea or oatmeal, really show their worth by helping you keep your meters full and helping you push a little further, because when one of those meters runs out, you will take a tumble.
That’s when finding a backpack left behind by another climber actually means something. Those moments brought a genuine sense of relief, and it felt shared. Like you and Aava were both just trying to keep going.
It all blends together into a great gameplay loop; resting, belaying, setting up camp, cooking, taping your fingers, repairing pitons, all of it is thoughtfully integrated into the core experience of what Cairn is. None of it feels overdesigned, but all of it feels necessary. There were times when, during longer climbs, I would risk not using a piton to eat just to push myself over the end to have a warmer place to rest my head, and maybe, just maybe, hear some more of the story that is happening in the world while Aava is climbing.
Visually, Cairn is stunning, not in a loud way, but in a more serene, calming way that sneaks up on you. One of my favourite features is being able to pause and pull the camera back to see the path you’ve taken. I did this constantly, especially after the first few days. Looking at the route I climbed, remembering where I almost fell, where I barely scraped by, and how if I had managed to climb just ten feet to the right, how much easier things would have been.
Seeing your stamina mapped along that path is such a cool touch, and it turns your climb into a kind of visual memory. My favourite moment was after I rolled credits, going back and seeing the route and having all these vivid flashbacks.
“Visually, Cairn is stunning, not in a loud way, but in a more serene, calming way that sneaks up on you.”
There are also moments throughout Cairn that genuinely shocked me. Moments where I was afraid, and moments where I just sat there trying to process what was happening with Aava, and well, it’s impossible to talk about these big shocks without spoiling anything, and I won’t spoil anything, but I will say the game knows when to stay quiet and when to hit you with something unexpected. It doesn’t overuse those moments, which makes them land harder.
What really stuck with me most is how confident Cairn is in its identity. It knows exactly what it wants to be and never strays from that. It’s not going to appeal to everyone, but they do give you the tools to try and make it work for you with its difficulty systems. That’s part of why it works. It’s a game that asks for patience, attention, and respect for its systems. If you are into these deeply emotional games and you give it your attention, it gives you something that feels truly unique and personal.
It’s not lost on me that it’s only January and I already feel like I’ve played something that’s going to be in my top five games of the year. Cairn isn’t flashy. It’s not loud. But it left an impression that hasn’t faded. I can’t stop thinking about my climb, the mistakes I made, the routes I chose, and the moments where I thought I could never come back from, only to make a Hail Mary call that somehow worked. That kind of impact doesn’t come along often, and when it does, you know you’ve played something special.
Cairn isn’t just a good game. It’s something special that everyone should at least try, because for me, Cairn is a masterpiece.
