Your left hand is locked onto a hold. Your right is reaching for the next one. The wind picks up. Aava’s fingers start to shake. Don’t slip.
That’s Cairn in a nutshell, a survival-climber from French indie studio The Game Bakers that dropped in January 2026 and immediately hooked over 200,000 players in its first weekend. If you’ve played Furi or Haven, you already know this studio doesn’t do things by half. With Cairn, they’ve set their sights on something even more ambitious: making you feel every single metre of a mountain that no one has ever summited before.
You play as Aava, a professional climber with a dream, a robot companion, and absolutely no guarantee of making it back down. Your destination is Mount Kami, a towering fictional peak with a deeply unsettling survival rate. The story unfolds through encounters with other climbers, scattered letters, and the quiet weight of a mountain that’s been keeping secrets for a long time.
The climbing itself is where Cairn earns its reputation. You control each of Aava’s limbs individually, placing hands and feet on holds, reading the rock face from below, and planning your route before committing to it. There are no glowing markers telling you where to go. No pre-set paths. Just you, the wall, and the creeping realisation that the route you chose three minutes ago might have been a mistake. On paper it sounds simple enough. Well, it is not simple.
Survival adds another layer of pressure on top of that. You need to manage pitons, chalk, food, water, and medicine across a long and gruelling ascent. Bivouac shelters serve as save points where Aava can rest, cook, and patch herself up before heading back out into the cold. Run out of resources far from a ledge and the tension becomes genuinely uncomfortable in the best possible way.
Visually, Cairn is striking. The art direction from comic book artist Mathieu Bablet gives the mountain an illustrated, almost painterly quality that shifts beautifully with the lighting. Sunrise across a rock face feels genuinely earned after a hard climb. The soundtrack, crafted by the team behind Limbo, Inside, and Control, keeps things atmospheric without ever pulling you out of the moment.
The Game Bakers described Mount Kami as one long boss fight, which tells you everything about the DNA of this game. It’s demanding in the way Furi was demanding: precise, intentional, and deeply satisfying when it clicks. Accessibility options are there if you need them, but the game is clearly designed for players who want to feel the mountain push back.
If you’re after something that makes you think, sweat, and occasionally hold your breath, Cairn is absolutely worth the climb.
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