Imagine Mount Snowdon. Got that? Well double it, then double it again, then times it by ten. Throw in the remnants of an entire civilisation living in its peaks, add in some deer, bears and incredibly aggressive birds, several mountain lakes and biblical weather conditions. What you’ve got is Mount Kami, the setting and one of the stars of Cairn, a game about climbing, overcoming challenges, and personal growth.
You play Aava, a celebrity in the (admittedly niche) world of mountain climbing, and your goal is simple: to be the first recorded person to set foot on the summit of Mount Kami. You don’t need much more of a set up than this as the beauty of Cairn’s narrative is found in the way Aava develops and through Kami itself.
I wasn’t overly keen on Aava at first. She’s cold, abrasive and, to be honest, rude at times, even to those she should care about. Her base camp team, led by Chris who you hear from through periodical voice notes, are essentially ignored by her despite Chris desperately wanting updates on her journey and her safety. She’s obviously doing this climb to prove something to herself, and I appreciate she wants her own space to do it but would it kill her to drop him a quick “I’m fine” back?
This coldness extends to her interactions with other characters too, including Marco, a fellow climber and Aava fanboy. Despite brushing him off when you first meet him, I really liked how you see Aava’s kinder, more compassionate side come out through subsequent interactions with Marco, even sharing a warm cup of soup in his Bivouac and then travelling together for a while afterwards. I felt genuinely bad when I told him to shut up midway through a conversation as I didn’t read a button prompt properly before pressing it, and was gutted when it led to him choosing not to travel with me.
As you’ve probably guessed, most of the game is spent climbing. Before diving into it, I want to make something absolutely crystal clear: this is not a cosy game. I’ve seen a few people think it is based on the gorgeous visuals and soft style, but that is far from the reality. I’ve been (lovingly) referring to it as a “Stepslike” game, in a nod to my 2025 Game of the Year. You control each of Aava’s limbs individually, carefully picking your way up the mountain, manually manoeuvring hands and feet into position to give you the best purchase to allow you to progress.
It’s not a complex system: you press a button to grip something and then the game cycles to the next limb it thinks you’ll need. There’s an option to manually choose the limbs but I rarely needed it, I was quite happy just focusing on placement and letting the game choose the limbs for me, although it did occasionally lead to Aava twisted like a janky mountain pretzel, which detracted a bit from the largely grounded feel of the game. It’s a really satisfying system though, and what starts out as fairly basic soon benefits from additional layers of complexity.
There are no set routes up the mountain, and while you can occasionally find maps which provide colour coded routes based on difficulty, most of the time you’ll just be eyeing things up and trying to find the easiest way up. As well as the climb itself, you’ve also got wind, rain and freezing temperatures to contend with so you’ll need to make use of different tools to keep yourself safe.
Pitons can be driven into the rock to act as makeshift checkpoints: when you fall (and you will fall), you’ll only fall back to your next piton rather than to your death. It gives you more control over your route, and you can play it safe by using pitons as much as possible or, like me, push your luck towards the next summit and try to free climb. I ended up regularly chalking my hands, especially when wet surfaces were involved, as it meant I could shift more weight to my hands and take some of the pressure off my legs. Aava’s limbs essentially act as your HUD while climbing, and you’ll need to pay close attention to them if you want to survive. If she’s shaking like a shitting dog then it’s probably a sign to stop for a second and refresh your stamina.
There are some pretty intense survival mechanics at play too. You’ll be managing your temperature, hunger, stamina and health and will be making regular stops in your Bivouac to replenish these. Considering nobody lives on Kami now, there is stuff everywhere and you’ll want to pick up as much as your backpack will allow, whether its plants, eggs, dried/canned food from bearproof boxes, or just fresh water for your flask. All of these can be used in your Bivouac to cook with, and while most items can be used individually, you’ll want to combine them on your stove to get better effects. For example, you may find some instant noodles and if you’re desperately hungry then eating them uncooked will be a necessity. If you can hang on until the next Bivouac spot though you can cook them with some water and get an enhanced effect on your food meter and maybe even a temperature boost too. I found myself in some real dicey moments where I was out of food and stamina halfway up a cliff, at one point even passing out from hunger, so the stakes are really high and you need to prep as much food as you can.
While you can only set your Bivouac up at designated shrines, the game does a good job at making sure there’s one nearby no matter which route you’re taking. At first I thought they were a bit sporadic but if you take the time to pull the camera back before each climb, you’ll see there’s actually a lot of them out there and with careful planning you should be able to hit one whenever you need to.
Your Bivouac will also be where you manage your inventory, fix pitons (thanks to the help of your friendly Climbot) or bandage your hands. As you climb your hands will get increasingly shredded, and bandaging them is a manual process of looking at each finger, assessing the damage and then wrapping bandages around the worst of them using your left stick. I was really surprised at how many systems were in play throughout the game, and loved the tactile nature of them and the climbing as they really made me feel grounded in the world.
This is an impressive feat as, while the game is grounded, it’s set in a drop dead gorgeous world that almost looks cartoony at times. It’s genuinely beautiful, with a bright visual style that hides just how brutal a game it can be. Rough, sheer cliff faces lead to outcrops or shelves on the mountain that are coated in lush grass and trees. You’ll find lakes, caves (both natural and manmade) and all sorts of wildlife on Kami, leading to a world that feels convincingly lived in. There’s no yellow paint guiding you up the mountain, just look around and you’ll see that every area is expertly crafted to allow you to find your own route.
Kami as a setting is excellent, by the way. It’s not just a mountain central to Aava’s story, it’s got its own narrative and stories attached to it. Logs from its previous inhabitants explain what life was like there, how they thought of the people outside of their community and why they left, while remnants of their lives can be found everywhere. Classrooms, places of worship, homes are all there waiting to be explored, and often reward you with nuggets of lore or items to aid in your survival. I was a bit confused at the start about an entire community living in the most dangerous mountain in the world, but quickly grew fascinated by their lives and I was always keen to seek out more information about them.
There’s very little I didn’t like about Cairn. Other than minor early narrative gripes, my main issue came from climbing and the slightly automated way in which limbs are guided towards specific footholds. I appreciate it’s done to help make things a bit easier, however I did find myself in some awkward positions at times that I think may have been alleviated by allowing 1:1 control over a limb when needed. These were often worse during indoor climbs, particularly those that require you to go horizontally but this wasn’t a common occurrence.
Considering it’s a dangerous death-trap of a mountain, I really enjoyed my time on Kami. It wasn’t as gentle as the visual style led me to believe, but the grounded, tactile nature of the climbing and survival elements really connected me to the game, while Aava’s personal growth helped me warm to her after a frosty start. Her journey is absolutely one worth making, and a climb you’ll want to see through to the end.
