Cairn (2025)

Cairn caught me by surprise. In the beginning I didn't even like it. From the outside it looked pretentious to me. Like it claims to give you beautiful sights while climbing a mountain, but in reality you'd watch 98% of times the backpack of someone stretching their arms and legs. This was at least the impression I got when I watched a demo playthrough video. But there was this itch. A thought that there must be something else. Something that keeps the positivity about this game rising. The game kept returning to my mind over and over. I had to give in eventually, I had to try it. So I got the game and right from the get-go something happened that I can only describe as magic. The controls are fluid, every successful grab of the rock structures feels so rewarding. The movement is so gentle yet so powerful. And then you start to feel the struggle. It's getting tougher, stamina is getting used up. You start to make mistakes, you feel that danger creeping up to you. What will you do? You check the remaining distance. Will you waste the piton for safety? You have to decide quick, or else you'll fall. And falling is a high risk - you might die, in any case you'll have to rest, use more resources, climb it all again. And then you make it, you've reached another point of interest. Another plateau. An abandoned village. A new place to explore. A new place to climb. Maybe someone else. You are rewarded with an amazing sight and you look back at where you came from. The previous path is so tiny, and yet you've still got so much left. But you look forward. You refresh. You gather resources. You see a new goal. Through this whole journey, you'll feel more struggle. More hazards. Each climb will set a new limit. Increase the difficulty. But you're learning, and you'll continue to master every new challenge. You have to. You have to keep going. You have to reach the peak of the mountain. You have to finish this journey. I believe that this overwhelming positive feeling I got from playing this game, this magic, is coming from an amazingly well design. The artwork is stylized but detailled, and while looking insanely beautiful with its palettes and textures, it's also so easiely readable for the climbing task. The graphics show you the path, and it is a joy to navigate through these seemingly endless possibilities of travel paths. But then on top of that you have this incredibly detailled sound design that makes this world so diverse and alive. The winds. The grass rustling. The cracles of stepping and grabbingthe rock. The blows through the caves. The waterfalls. The animals. The storms. Martin Stig Andersen is a master at showing how important sound is in a game, and I believe this is the secret sauce for this game. Cairn is a once in a lifetime game for me. I never expected to love it so much. But I love everything about it. The story of Aawa is wonderful. And I am really happy to have experienced it. If you have that itch, the urge to explore nature, to get surprised by new sights after a long climb, then look no further, and dive straight in.

Cairn is an experience. And honestly, I'm betting on it as the best indie game of the year. Now that I've finished it twice, platinumed it, and seen all the endings (and all the other things I could have explored and seen), I decided to give my feedback. As a climber, it greatly satisfies my desire to climb. All the logic and movements make sense and seem to have been created with great care and attention by people who love the sport. The characters are very well written (even if you get angry or don't like them) and maintain their personalities and convictions. The setting and soundtrack are wonderful, and the story is one of those that leaves you thinking for many days after you've finished the game. I really wish I could have turned on my light at the end, but in any case, all the endings (in every way) somehow fit the character's narrative. (Trying not to give any spoilers) My girlfriend and I spent hours philosophizing about how Aava responds to the calling within her and that, precisely because of who she is, she is able (or not) to achieve her goals, which also puts her in the position she is in. We talked a lot about the characters, what leads them to act the way they do, about the unfolding of events, their endings (and how they make sense), and even about some things that were missing (certain information that should have been passed on upon returning and that is not explicitly told). In the end, it's not about the characters or the conclusions (which can sometimes be bittersweet), it's about the journey itself. It's about the climber and the mountain. Aava is one of the most complex, profound, and interesting protagonists I've seen in recent times. She's different from what we usually see in other games. The "clean" and minimalist screen makes the gameplay extremely immersive. The "feedback" comes through the senses, just as – while climbing – we feel our body and the environment around us: the sound of our breathing, the tremors in our limbs, small particles of rolling stones indicating bad terrain. In a world of Triple-A games that hold players' hands and point out "shining" what needs to be done, Cairn trusts the player and leaves them responsible for creating their own path and managing their possibilities. The game encourages and rewards players for exploring the mountain, giving items, upgrades, recipes, enriching the story and the world. The corpses are there for a reason, not just as decorations or to be looted; they tell and expand the story of the mountain. They exemplify the myth that "the mountain always wins" and the dangers that climbers face. There are several routes with numerous difficulty levels, but the ascent maintains tension at all times. The cooking system allows the player to discover recipes for themselves. (Although the game never explains what the buffs do, it's manageable). I see some comments complaining about the game not being intuitive, the lack of feedback, or the ending being "difficult" because it "consumes too many resources," but even that makes sense. These comments are wrong on one point: From the beginning of the game, the story makes it clear that the mountain has killed hundreds of climbers, and the higher you climb, the scarcer the resources will become. It's up to you to prepare and take precautions for this. Cairn is a climbing game that aims to be more realistic. If you don't know the basics of climbing and don't make an effort to learn (throughout the game), you'll probably have difficulty. And, for most of the comments like "I don't know how to manage my resources and that's why I starved to death at the end" or "I found the mechanics confusing and unfair because I fell without flashing alerts on the screen telling me why," maybe the game isn't for you. For climbers, there's nothing unexpected. The game's community has seemed very friendly and welcoming so far. I've even seen YouTubers playing Cair and showing off the tools they use, discussing route strategies and climbing techniques. 10/10 game, well worth it. I really hope there's a DLC with other routes and/or a sequel.

[code]Alpinist difficulty, casual playthrough ~14 hours No spoilers in this review! [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/45534557/]@MatureContent[/url][/code] [h3]Indie game of the year.[/h3] This isn’t just a fantastic climbing game, it is also an emotional story that transforms this game into so much more than just reaching the summit. This game blew me away. I was beginning to think that indie games couldn’t really surprise me anymore, with most of them now just being build on similar formulars or just straight copies of each other. Cairn though, is bringing something totally unique and so cool that I’m surprised we haven’t seen someone make something like this earlier. The climbing itself felt really good. Manually moving arms and legs, while also being careful where you step and what you lean on, is what makes the gameplay so fun and also super immersive. That said, it can sometimes be hard to control which limb to move and there were instances where a certain arm or leg was shaking like crazy and the game just refused to let me move it, which often resulted in death. It sucks when it happens, but for the most part it was salvageable when moving quickly. I do however like how they designed the pitons, where you have to place them correctly and strategically, and if you leave them behind or if they break, you lose them. It makes you have to plan a route for every wall before climbing it. Same goes for supplies you scavenge and water you can collect from mountain streams. This whole survival mechanic added a lot of immersion. I think the only thing really missing is a clear stamina bar or something to visualize fatigue. Aava can obviously feel it, but the player can only rely on audio cues, which can be really hard to understand sometimes. I played on the alpinist difficulty with no assist and lost all my pitons halfway up, and the stress you feel in this game, climbing 50+ meters with no pitons, shaking limbs and no save points, is the kind of stress I think you might only be able to experience in this game. I can’t even imagine what it must feel like for those who chose to do free solo. Maybe ill try it one day too. At last, I know this is a small thing, but it bugged me a bit that you don’t start the game on flat ground and instead on the side of a mountain wall. Even if it is just 100 meters or whatever above flat ground, I want to climb the entire thing from start to finish and not be cheated out of the first little part of the mountain. Not a big issue though, but felt like mentioning it anyway. This is a fantastic game though, highly recommend it, even at full price which I bought it at. I’m already looking forward to the next game or the sequel! ————————————————————————————— [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/45534557/]Help me out by following my Curator, I’d really appreciate it!![/url]