I went into Cairn with the completely wrong expectations. That’s probably on me. I saw “climbing game” and thought it would be slow and calming, maybe a little stressful but mostly vibes. That lasted maybe an hour. Cairn is hard. Not in a flashy way, not in a “git gud” way, but in a quiet, stubborn way that just lets you make bad decisions and live with them. Or fall because of them.
You play as Aava, a climber trying to summit Mount Kami, and pretty quickly the game stops pretending it’s going to guide you. There’s no obvious path. No big sign that says “this way is correct.” You can climb almost anywhere, which sounds nice until you realize that means you are responsible for everything that goes wrong. Every hand placement, every awkward reach, every decision to keep going instead of stopping. If you mess up, that’s on you.
It’s not an easy climb
What really got me at first was how unforgiving the difficulty is. Cairn does not explain itself very well, at least not in the way most games do. There’s no stamina bar screaming at you to stop. The game just expects you to notice that Aava is breathing harder, moving slower, starting to shake a bit. I ignored that early on. I kept pushing because I thought I could squeeze out a little more progress. That usually ended with a fall. Weather makes this even worse. Rain, cold, darkness, all of it stacks up fast. Sometimes the smartest move is to turn around, and the game is totally fine with you doing that. The game is really a deliberate affair. Take for example the act of taping your hands in the tents or Bivouac as they are called, is a slow methodical process in which you rotate the thumbstick or the mouse slowly as you tape each individual fingers. For most games this would be an one button press action but Cairn wants you to sit with the game. Feel each moment.
Take all the sights in
One thing I definitely misunderstood early was exploration. I treated it like optional stuff. Side paths felt risky and unnecessary, so I skipped them. That made the game way harder than it needed to be. Cairn is built around exploration, even if it never straight-up tells you that. Once I started poking around more, climbing toward things that just looked interesting, the whole experience changed. Food items, gear, watering spots – you can miss a lot if you dont explore.
And it’s not just for scenery. You actually find really important stuff by exploring. I found indestructible pitons that made long climbs way less stressful. I found glowing gloves that helped a ton in dark areas and bad weather. But the biggest thing by far was maps. Maps are a huge deal in this game. They show routes, hidden ledges, and safer paths that are basically impossible to spot from below. The first time I found one from a corpse, it felt like the game finally threw me a bone.
Before maps, my “planning” was mostly just reacting to problems as they showed up. After maps, I could actually think ahead. Where I could rest. Where I should place pitons I might need later. Whether the direct route was actually worth it or if it was going to drain all my supplies. In a game this unforgiving, that kind of planning matters a lot more than I expected.
Take it slow
The survival systems are always working in the background too. Food, water, injuries, exhaustion. None of it is flashy, but all of it adds up. Taking a shortcut usually feels good in the moment and then terrible later when you realize you burned through resources you really needed. Slower routes with better handholds and natural rest spots almost always worked out better for me, even if they looked less impressive.The aforementioned maps actually show you paths marked by color scale on a difficulty curve. For sections you don’t have maps for, take a breather – and watch the surface. The more cracks the surface has, the easier it is to climb.
There’s no traditional stamina bar telling you when to stop. Instead, you read Aava’s body language. Her breathing, the shaking in her limbs, her quivering fingers and the subtle changes in animation. Pressing triangle to take a breather when you have 4 firm holds feels like a pressure valve being released.
Bivouacs ended up being way more important than I thought they would be. They’re not just save points. They’re where you recover, cook, fix your gear, and just take a breath before heading back out. Reaching one after a stressful climb feels like relief, not progress. Skipping one because you feel confident is almost always a mistake. I learned that the hard way more than once.
Environmental Storytelling
The story side of Cairn is really subtle. There aren’t big cutscenes or dramatic moments. You find bits of it while exploring. Old camps, broken ropes, abandoned gear, notes left behind by other climbers. None of it is shoved in your face, but it slowly builds this feeling that you’re not the first person who thought they could beat this mountain. And most of them didn’t. Even how you manage your backpack tells a story. A broken camera, hand tape, flowers and even junk. What you choose to keep and what you choose to compost tells you a story as well.
Accessible Survivability
I was also surprised by how well the accessibility options fit the game. Stuff like rewind or visual aids doesn’t make things easy, it just makes experimenting less punishing. I honestly cannot imagine playing this game without the “good hold” visual aid. Being able to try a weird route without losing half an hour of progress makes you more willing to explore, which feels very intentional. The game wants you to learn the mountain, not brute-force it.
If you are not using the accessibility options – always remember to compost all trash to make chalk. Chalk helps get grip. Always fix your pitons, you only have ten of them. Explore the zones to find as many tapes as you can find to tape your fingers to ensure that you have a good grip at all times.
There’s no skill tree here. No stats to grind. You get better because you understand the mountain better. You remember where things are. That knowledge is the progression.
Cairn is slow, tough, and honestly a little frustrating at times, especially early on. But once it clicks, it feels different from most games. If you try to rush it, it pushes back hard. If you slow down, explore, and accept that backing off is sometimes the smartest move, it becomes something really special. When you finally get past a route that used to destroy you, it doesn’t feel like you beat the game. It feels like you finally understood it.
More indie games
For more articles on other indie games, please check out the links below:
Videogames.
Gym.
My dog.
Sneakers.
Manga.
In that order.
