Cairn Review: The Mountain Is the Boss Fight
The Game Bakers' climbing survival game is tense, beautiful and surprisingly emotional. Ace calls it 2026's first big must-play.
We've been waiting for Cairn since June of last year. Ace and Ryan loved the demo, and Josh played it too, beat it even, but he doesn't do climbing games, so he sat this one out. (He admitted to a lot of FOMO.) At launch it had more than 200,000 players and 94% positive reviews on Steam.
What is Cairn?
It's a weird combo of a climbing game, a survival game, some crafting elements. But more than anything, it's a vibes game.
You play Aava, an elite mountaineer set on summiting Mount Kami, a peak no one has ever conquered. More than 160 climbers have died trying. Ace's pitch for the game is perfect: what if the mountain itself was the boss fight? There's no combat, just preparation, precision, and the constant risk that one wrong move ends it all.
The climbing
You can control each limb yourself, choosing exactly where every hand and foot goes, or let the game pick the next limb for you. Ace mostly let the game decide, which sometimes meant missing a crack by a centimeter and grabbing flat rock instead and plummeting several feet.
Pitons are your checkpoints. Hammer one in and clip in, and a fall only drops you so far. Skip it, or slip before you've hooked in, and you might fall 15 feet, 30 feet, or all the way to the bottom. Ragdoll physics take over, and yes, you can die. Ryan's hard-earned advice: that 15-foot ledge that looks easy to free-climb? Don't. Take your time.
There's no fixed path. Everyone picks a different route up, and the weather, rain and wind change things on every attempt.
Survival
Between climbs, you set up camp and take care of Aava: wrap her bleeding fingers so your grip holds, eat, drink, and stay warm, all with only what you can carry in your pack. Exploring pays off with upgrades like a bigger chalk bag for an iron grip, a thermal blanket for resting without making camp, and Ace's favorite, a pinwheel on your backpack that warns you before the wind picks up so you don't get blown off the mountain. You can even catch fish with your bare hands.
The story
This is what lifts Cairn above a climbing simulator. Aava is abrasive, reserved and incredible at what she does. She ignores calls from her girlfriend and her publicist. As you climb, you start to understand why she is the way she is.
Climbing is like the combat in another game. You complete the climbing, and then you get the story.
Along the way you meet other characters, including Marco, a bright, optimistic young climber who's the polar opposite of Aava, and you uncover traces of an ancient civilization that once lived on the mountain. Ace compares it to Celeste, where climbing the mountain and overcoming yourself are the same story, except Cairn puts even more weight on the story.
Aava swears like a sailor when she falls, by the way. You'll feel the same and you'll sympathize.
A cozy game? Sort of
Ryan, our outdoorsy guy, calls this his kind of cozy game. There's a clear goal, a beautiful world of forests and waterfalls, amazing music and almost no UI, so it's just you, Aava and the mountain. It's also incredibly intense. Low on chalk, out of pitons, cold and hungry, and staring at a wall, you'll grip your controller harder than Aava grips the rock.
The VGP take
I'm not kidding when I say I think Cairn is our first big must-play of 2026.
Ace finished it and gave it a 9.2 to 9.3. It's so much more than climbing: exploration, survival, and a story with an ending (two, actually) we won't spoil here. Ryan, about three-quarters through and still climbing, gave it an 8.9, his favorite game in a genre he usually doesn't play. Even Josh, who didn't play it, says it looks masterfully made, from the visuals to the voice acting to the music.
If you even think you might like it, check it out. Just remember the game's tagline: the mountain always wins.