“All I ever wanted was to touch eternity for an instant. To reach one of those rare moments of bliss where everything seems in its place, and you feel you’re part of a whole.”
In the pantheon of video game challenges, we’ve slain dragons, commanded armies, and saved galaxies. But in Cairn, we are embarking on something that feels a little more monumental and fundamentally human. We are climbing a mountain. Follow Aava, a woman who is climbing towards eternity or maybe just running away from it. The mountain isn’t Everest; it’s Kami, a fictional peak no one has ever summited, and she is determined to be the first. Cairn is her story, and like both the mountain she is challenging and the climb itself, it is an incredible one.
Cairn by The Game Bakers, known for the frenetic duel of Furi and the intimate romance of Haven, comes a profound departure: a game not of combat or connection, but of sheer, unyielding ascent. Cairn strips away all pretence to focus on a singular, monumental verb: to climb. This is not a heroic power fantasy. It is a raw and respectful simulation of obsession, where victory is measured in inches, and survival is a currency spent with every move strips away fantasy and power to deliver a raw, unflinching simulation of one woman’s obsession to conquer the unconquered.
The Story of Kami and Aava
The biggest question we have in Cairn is why are we doing this? And you won’t find out Aava’s motivations straight away; instead, you’ll discover her motivations throughout the climb. Aava’s personal story unfolds through satellite phone calls with her partner, Leo, and encounters with a handful of other climbers. Leo is your tether to the world below—a world you’ll discover that’s full of obligations, relationships, and a life that feels increasingly alien to Aava. She can’t relate to that self below the mountain, making her conversations with him sparse, often ending with Aava ignoring the call. But from this, it paints a picture of a woman running from something as much as she is running to the summit.
The mountain itself, Kami, is the first chapter of this story. As you ascend, you discover remnants of those who came before: tattered prayer flags fluttering from ancient pitons, cryptic petroglyphs carved into sheltered rock faces, and the solemn, frozen remains of climbers from decades past. Kami is revealed to be a peak of spiritual significance, a “sacred giant” that has lured and claimed the ambitious for generations. This transforms the climb from a sporting achievement into a transgressive, almost mythic pursuit.
While Cairn feels like a solitary journey, there are people that you meet along the way who will highlight a bit more about who Aava is. These interactions are Cairn’s emotional core, exploring themes of legacy, mentorship, and the different reasons people seek the void.
Eternity Lies At The Top Of The Mountain
The core of Cairn is a climbing system of stunning intimacy and tension. You command each of Aava’s four limbs independently, searching the beautifully textured rock face of Mount Kami for holds—a slight discolouration, a promising crack, a fragile ledge. There is no glowing path, no automated grace. Progression is a careful, deliberate puzzle of physiology and physics.
The game’s brilliance is its substitution of traditional UI for bodily intuition. Aava’s stamina is not a bar; it is the tremor in her bicep, the sharp gasp she makes when overextended, the way her fingers whiten as a grip begins to fail. You learn to listen to her breaths, to interpret her grunts and whispers. The sound design, crafted by the team behind Limbo and Inside, puts you directly into the heartbeat of Aava, turning every scrape of chalk and crunch of gear into a moment of decision.
A full ascent of Kami is a substantial, 15-20 hour pilgrimage that never feels repetitive because the mountain itself is constantly evolving. You’ll navigate glassy ice sheets, navigate treacherous overhangs in driving rain, and make desperate pushes under the haunting glow of your headlamp. The act of pausing to pull the camera back, surveying the rock face like a map to plan your route, is as engrossing as the climb itself. There is no single right path, only risk-reward calculations written in stone and potential energy.
The mountain is a relentless, impartial teacher. One misjudged weight shift, one overcommitted reach, and the world becomes a violent blur of tumbling rock and sky, ending only in the jarring halt of your safety rope or a devastating impact. Expect to fail, expect to learn. Each fall etches the mountain’s danger more deeply into your understanding. They make your eventual successes—pulling onto a ledge after a harrowing sequence, nailing a dynamic move to a distant hold—feel not like personal, hard-won revelations. The elation is quiet, profound, and entirely earned.
The Logistics of Survival
Your journey is a dual struggle against gravity and attrition. Strapped to Aava’s back is a brutally limited pack; every resource is a strategic choice of life or death. Do you sacrifice a package of noodles to carry an extra piton? Is that roll of finger tape more valuable than a bottle of fuel for your stove? Combining scavenged mushrooms with a precious stock cube can yield more than just satiety; it might grant “Grit,” a temporary fortitude that steadies your meters during the next gruelling pitch. This loop of planning, climbing, and sustaining is meditative and deeply grounding.
Resources are scavenged from the environment: water from streams, mushrooms from crevices, and—most hauntingly—supplies from the abandoned camps and remains of those who came before. This system is never overwhelming; it’s starkly realistic. You eat, drink, and stay warm, or you die. It grounds the epic climb in a tangible, gritty reality.
Cairn: Verdict
In its final moments, Cairn circles back to the quiet yearning that began it. The game makes you understand, in your own tightened muscles and held breath, the true shape of Aava’s desire. It was never just about the summit. It was about the clarity found in the struggle itself. It was about reducing a complex life to a simple, physical purpose. It was about touching eternity, not at the peak, but in every instant of focused, perfect effort along the way. On Kami, eternity is found in the purity of a single, perfect motion.
Cairn is a monumental achievement in atmospheric storytelling and physical simulation. It is a demanding, contemplative, and intensely beautiful journey that redefines what a video game can feel like.
Cairn is out now for the PlayStation and PC.
Final Score: 5/5
