Cairn (2026)

I'm so taken back by Cairn, it's surprised me in more ways than one, I was not expecting it to be so emotional and haunting at the same time. Easily my game of the year so far.

I want to talk about the ending and the story so if you haven't finished / started it yet I'll mark the rest as spoilers.

Did people decide to come down or ascend at the end of the story? This wasn't a choice that I was expecting the game to place in my hands but it holds so much weight and I'm glad they did it. I really enjoyed getting to know Avas character during the ascent, at the beginning I thought she was slightly arrogant, blunt, and stubborn, but as the story unwinds the game does a really good job of unravelling all the reasons why she is this way. To me it was clear that the mountains consumed her and destroyed every relationship she has.

Her bonding with Marco towards the end of the game, combined with the realisation that she's neglected her family meant that when grandpa shows her the realities of the mountain and how no one makes it out alive, she's forced to confront everything she's been running away from, and also everything she's been working towards. I felt like Ava would have wanted to continue the ascent because it's all she knows and her competitive mindset means that failure is never an option. But I also like to think that Marco, Grandpa, the backpacks of fallen climbers, and her messages from home eventually got through to her and helped her realise that she is more than the mountain.

I made the decent back down so that she could live another day - what did everyone else do?

I absolutely adore how the coolest reward you get for finishing a tough climb in Cairn isn't loot or XP or whatever, it's just the ability to freely belay down and explore bits of the cliffside you missed on the way up. Scouting out some hidden cave that would've been a nightmare to climb to, and choosing instead to effortlessly swing in from above feels like an ingenious trick every time, despite clearly being intended.

Some of these climbing sections where you can't use pitons are brutal and it's genuinely making me consider checking out some climbing tips so I can use more advanced holds. My sisters partner has done bouldering for years and it's been fun talking to him and transferring his real life skills so that I can try and pull off different holds.

...It has taken me until day 9 of my ascent to figure out that I have access to my light and barometer by holding down L2... How I've made it this far I don't know!

Messed around in Steam Input and made a one-button setup for manual limb selection, where you can grab with your current limb and pick the next with one press.

It works super fluidly like 95% of the time! But the other 5% it bugs out and causes Aava to let go of all four holds at once, immediately falling to her death. So it still needs some work.

Simply beautiful. Loving every second of this so far.

The intro is simple but super fun, the technical mechanics, visuals, the survival elements, setting up camps, collecting herbs and cooking in your tent. None of it bogs you down, it all works so well.

The score and atmosphere really is something else too. Can tell I'm going to get a lot of hours out of this.

Not too keen on the default controls they went with for manual limb selection. But now that I've got that sorted, holy smokes! This is unfathomably good.

Finding each new hold feels like its own micro puzzle, dauntingly freeform and deliciously tense. You're constantly weighing your long-term destination against the realities of the immediate cliff face in front of you. And crucially, the mix of simple vs complex decisions feels just right, with rock-solid rest points appearing just often enough to reset the pace and keep the climb from becoming overwhelming.

I'm loving every second so far.