Cairn Review – Obsession, agony and dread in a climbing game that reaches exhausting new heights | games

MMountaineers and climbers, especially the free soloing type, are the most fascinating lunatics in humanity: single-minded, daring souls who throw themselves into feats of choice that are extremely life-threatening. It’s hard not to feel forced and appalled by someone like Alex Honnold. until with Ropes, one wrong move can mean death in mountaineering, a crazy human activity that puts you at the complete mercy of nature. You can’t help but wonder what kind of person would willingly choose this: what kind of person looks at the face of a towering cliff, or a wall of wind-lashed ice, and thinks, I bet I can get there.

Aava, the heroine of Cairn, is that kind of person: a champion climber, a woman who has conquered one peak after another, but for some reason can’t walk away. In front of her stands Mount Kami, a Himalayan-style glacial-tipped peak that has never been climbed before. Kami was once home to a tribe of people, whose remains you can find as you drag yourself up each section of the mountain, but now you are very alone. Controlling Aava’s limbs, she moves her hands and feet toward the imperfections in the rock, jamming her fingers into cracks and her toes into small ledges. She quickly learns to read the mountain, as does Ava.

Despite the absence of realistic stakes, Cairn makes your heart race and your mouth go dry. When Ava’s limbs start to shake and she begins to breathe more urgently, you know she’s not safe on the face of the cliff; She’d better get her feet back quickly, or gamble and try to hook a piece of metal and secure it before she loses her grip. You have a limited number of life-saving engines, so you’d better conserve them. At one point, I was stuck halfway up a bare rock face after climbing all night, with no pitons left and no relief in sight in any direction, and had to make a very grueling 10-minute climb towards the cave without missing a beat. She felt desperate at the end and Ava nearly slipped as she pulled herself to the last edge. I had to put the controller down and do some deep breathing before I could continue.

In this regard, Cairn is a great survival game. It feels risky, as it should. In addition to managing Aava’s hand and foothold, you have to manage her backpack, scavenge for food, and try to find water wherever you can (tip: save every bottle you find). You have to bandage her damaged fingers with effort to maintain her grip, when she gets a moment of rest. And with this feeling of danger and suffering comes a feeling of accomplishment, when you are victorious. The relief she felt when she found a safe spot where Ava could set up her tent was intoxicating.

As the hours pass and conditions on the mountain worsen, Ava’s obsession with conquering the kami begins to feel not only impossible to brave, but self-destructive. Cleverly, the game invites you to question why she does this – and why You Do this. This isn’t an easy game, especially towards the end (although you can always turn in some assists to make it less brutal if you want). There were sections where I fell down the mountain repeatedly, failed to find a good path, and was thirsty and hungry. After being dangled from the rope for the fifteenth time, I felt extremely frustrated with myself, and Ava expressed her frustration every time she tripped. Maybe I should have walked away and taken a break for a while, but Ava’s stubborn determination was getting to me.

It turns out that Cairn, as much as it is a game about climbing and nature, is a game about what it takes to be an Aava — and what it costs. I was blown away by the ending, which left me crying on my couch at 1am. There were so many moments of beauty and awe during my ascent that left me quietly awestruck. That dread, in the end, was proportional to the hardship.