Cairn was one of the games that I kept mentally returning to after I first played it at IGN Live 2025. Billed as a survival climber, Cairn’s approach to rock climbing is far different than most titles. Games like Peak and Tears of the Kingdom let you adhere to any wall, with only the length of your stamina bar holding you back. Cairn, however, wants you to plan your route thoughtfully. That means not only rationing your supplies and managing grip strength, hunger, and thirst, but also knowing where to place your character’s hands and feet.
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You play as Aava, a mountaineer on a mission to be the first human to reach the top of the fictional Mount Kami. Unlike Jusant, another rock climbing game with a similar climbing mechanic, you must search for the mountain’s dips, cracks, and bends to stabilize Aava if you ever hope of reaching the mountain’s peak.
Cairn automatically decides which limb to move first, based on Aava’s posture and position. Admittedly, this takes some time to get used to as you play. It seems simple at first, but if you’ve ever rock climbed in real life, you know that scaling a wall is like solving a puzzle in real time. If you place your hand or foot in the wrong place, it can ruin your ascent. That’s the case in Cairn, too. You’re welcome to bend Aava into a pretzel, but doing so will quickly send her plummeting to the ground, which results in massive damage or even death.
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As mentioned, Cairn is reminiscent of Baby Steps or QWOP, two Benett Foddy-developed games with limb-based mechanics. While not as comical as those titles, Cairn harnesses the difficulty—and the reward—of manually manipulating limbs to propel your character forward. Cairn seeks to emulate the tension and relief of rock climbing, and it largely succeeds on that front. As it turns out, rock climbing is the perfect framing for this quirky control scheme.
Having played dozens of hours of Peak, another climbing game, I constantly fought against my natural inclination to just go for it and power up the wall. In fact, it’s possible to brute force your way through those first few climbs. However, you’ll find yourself burning through energy, food, and water faster than you can replenish them. I wanted to cry out in frustration, along with Aava, as I slipped from a significant height, losing precious progress and slamming into the wall, taking serious damage. Moments like these punctuate your journey, but they make getting to solid ground that much more meaningful.
(Credit: The Game Bakers/PCMag)
