Cairn Review

Ain’t No Mountain High Enough…

HIGH That ending.

LOW Cursing Climbot’s name every time he broke one of my pitons.

WTF It seems like Aava could’ve… just gone to therapy?

In its opening narration, Cairn’s protagonist, Aava, states that she is driven by a desire to achieve a moment of oneness — an instance where she feels “like a part of a whole”. This quest for singularity functions as something of a thesis statement for Cairn, a title in which every design element centers around emphasizing the frustration, beauty, and brutality of climbing.

Aava’s journey begins in the foothills of the reputedly unclimbable Mount Kami. Rendered as a single, contiguous space, there are countless paths to Kami’s summit, none of them easy, but Aava is a world-renowned climber willing to eschew both friends and family to achieve her goal.

Kami is a lonely place and it quickly becomes clear that so is Aava. Though the mountain is not entirely vacant, Aava’s only constant companion is Climbot, a spiderlike robot that silently manages her belay line, and functions as a communications relay. Not a people person, Aava’s early characterization shows her ignoring calls from her partner, shrugging off her agent, and being generally rude to the plucky climber she keeps bumping into. Aava’s inability to confront, or even express, her emotions (outside of anger) is a theme throughout Cairn, and there are some truly heartbreaking moments as she continuously rebukes any bid for connection.

What Aava lacks in interpersonal skills, she more than makes up for in climbing ability. Controlled from a third-person perspective, there are scenic paths Aava can walk along smoothly, but most of the player’s time is spent vertically, fighting a vicious (at times futile) battle against gravity. Cairn takes an unconventional approach to its mechanics, and my first forays up its many cruxes and crags were less than spectacular.

During an ascent, each of Aava’s limbs are controlled individually. One at a time, her hands and feet must be placed directly on the cracks and crevices that will bear her weight. There is no auto-climb here, and without careful positioning, Aava can easily lose her grip and fall. Checkpoints are infrequent on Kami, and it was not uncommon to lose half an hour of progress due to one poorly chosen foothold.

I soon learned that mountaineering is a slow, deliberate affair, rewarding preparation and observation over fast hands and agility. With the ability to zoom out the camera to scout ahead, the literal texture of the rock becomes indicative of progress – a smooth cliff-face is tantamount to death, so picking a route with plenty of cracks and outcroppings is critical. With the colorful, high-contrast aesthetic, I quickly developed a literacy for reading the rocks, rarely having an issue distinguishing foothold from set dressing. This legibility is crucial, as Cairn’s extreme difficulty will not accommodate incautious play.

Further complicating matters, Aava’s stamina and grip strength are not directly visible to the player. Instead of an on-screen indicator, players must interpret Aava’s fortitude from her body language, posture, and positioning. As her grip beings to fail, she will start trembling, gasping for air as the edges of the screen darken. Learning to quickly read these signs and react is necessary for advancement, with sluggish responses all but guaranteeing a fall.

It is a circuitous path that leads to Kami’s apex, and even Aava, with her obsessive determination, must find time for rest. Cairn accommodates with quiet moments of exploration, and it’s not long before Aava begins finding traces of life tucked away in Kami’s many nooks and crannies. From tense stand-offs with bears to deserted villages and hermits, Kami reveals itself as far more than a simple landmark to be conquered. These segments seamlessly blend into the experience and utilize the same mechanics, but to softer effect. The hand-carved ledges and windows of a temple hewn directly from the rock offer stable footing, hinting at the possibility of a life in concert with Kami, rather than defiance against it.

As I progressed up Kami’s unforgiving slopes and cliffs, I became increasingly aware of Aava’s physicality in connection to her surrounding environment. It’s I began intuiting next steps based solely on her character animations, that Cairn evolves beyond a simple exercise in masochism. Taking cues from Aava’s outstretched arms and legs as they sought purchase on Kami’s shadowy overhangs and subtle indentations, I found myself relying less on my mechanical comprehension of Cairn, and more on my growing understanding of the connection between climber and mountain.

Cairn demands that players understand its subjects over its systems. It is the rare title that can transcend its mechanics in this way, leading me to a stronger awareness of Aava’s bloodied fingers, desperately gripping sharp, virtual stone, than of my own hands, sweating on the plastic, contoured controller in my lap. The harmony in Cairn’s design creates these moments, with every scaled cliff-face a testament to Aava’s bond with Kami and, by extension, my own.

Choosing a risky path, Cairn offers players imperfect feedback through subtle animations, and I confess that I wasn’t always certain why a seemingly solid grip would arbitrarily fail. Furthermore, there is an inherent awkwardness to the physics-based controls — more than once my ascent ended prematurely in a tangled tumble. Any frustrations, however, were mirrored by Aava – her increasingly profane, desperate cries echoing my own as she fell for the umpteenth time. A testament to my growing empathy, the rawness of her rage somehow simultaneously justified and nullified my anger at the (admittedly) fussy mechanics, freeing me to admire the payoff of Cairn’s daring approach.

While reaching Kami’s peak is neither simple nor easy, Cairn’s ability to synthesize technicality and intuition results in a deceptively emotional journey grounded in humanity. Every inch of progress in Cairn is a victory, and the overwhelming relief I felt as credits began to roll was matched only by my burgeoning regret at the thought of Aava’s quest concluding.

Rating: 9 out of 10

Buy Cairn – PlayStation * Steam

Disclosures: This game is developed and published by The Game Bakers. It is currently available on PS5 and PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PC. Approximately 16 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the gamewas completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated M and contains Strong Language, and Use of Drugs. While there is no direct violence in this game, the player character often falls from a great height in a ragdoll fashion. Arms and legs can twist in the process, leading the character’s body to become contorted. These falls are physics based and do not feel gratuitous, or violent in nature. Though there is no gore, the character’s fingers can suffer cuts and will bleed from climbing, requiring players to bandage them, and her feet will show spots of blood if her health is low. The player character will occasionally scream profanity when falling, including most four-letter words. At one point in the narrative, two characters consume an old bottle of alcohol resulting in a hallucination. Additionally, alcohol can be consumed during play, although I did not personally come across it during my playthough.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game offers subtitles. The subtitles can be resized with three available options – small, medium, and big. Additionally, an optional background is available. While most audio cues are accompanied by a visual component, one glaring omission is in Aava’s breathing. During play, I found myself relying on changes in her breathing to indicate when her stamina was low, and these elements are not subtitled, nor are they visually indicated. Though there are other visual indicators for Aava’s stamina, her breath was often the first sign that her energy was low, and I found it more difficult to assess her condition when playing without sound, and for that reason, this game is not fully accessible.