Cairn, a challenging, narrative-driven survival game focused on climbing, has already surpassed 300,000 players. Cairn released on January 29 and has quickly become one of the year’s fastest-growing indie titles.
Players control pro-climber Aava as she undertakes a momentous challenge: being the first climber to summit the imposing Mount Kami. The mountain is fictional, but the game tells players early on that it’s comparable to Mount Everest, which stands at 29,032′, or 8,848.9 meters.
Cairn is a Climb Worth Taking – Review Roundup
Cairn, one of the most anticipated indie games of 2026, has finally launched. But does the climb reach the summit, or fall just short?
“We really love when the objective in the game is so clearly aligned with what the player sees and does,” Audrey Leprince, co-founder, executive producer and CEO of The Game Bakers, told GameRant. “It’s kind of obvious you have to climb the mountains in front of you. There is nothing else. So we love the simplicity of that.”
While It May Be a Simple Ethos, Crafting the Gameplay Was Anything But
Cairn has resonated with gamers and climbers alike, something the team was initially a bit anxious about, Leprince said. But when she attended the Game Developers Conference (GDC) in California, her fears were assuaged.
“There was a climbing community there, and they all said, ‘We really like it. I can do the same as in real life.’ And we were so happy, so surprised that the climbing community thought this was a realistic game, because we knew we were not completely realistic,” Leprince said.
It’s clear that the developers behind the game shared many of the same principles of the climbers they worked hard to emulate. A minimalist, simple approach focused on the challenge ahead, and the beauty of the world around them.
Cairn: Climbing Guide
Learn how to properly climb in Cairn, and discover tips to help you make it to the summit of Mount Kami.
In order to really impart the feeling of climbing to the player, the team did extensive research, even going as far as taking a team trip to Mount Blanc – the highest summit in France. There, they worked with a guide on a 4,000-meter (13123.36’) climb, Leprince said. They also worked with climbers throughout Cairn’s five-year development, including with French mountaineer Elisabeth Revol.
Revol has an impressive resume, with numerous ascents in the French Alps and even summiting the notorious “Killer Mountain” Nanga Parbat in Pakistan. Sadly, her climbing partner, Polish climber Tomasz Mackiewicz, did not survive the climb.
“We did educate ourselves a lot,” Leprince said. “And to our surprise, half of the team took on climbing, and we still have four or five people on the team of 15 that are really into it and still do it on a regular basis. Most of our level design team. So it’s kind of magic.”
Leprince herself was also raised in the climbing world. Her father was an alpinist, even attempting the notorious mountain K2 in the western Himalayas.
The team knew early on which aspects of climbing they wanted players to feel — in fact, it was nearly all of them. Leprince said they wanted the player to truly embody Aava, and tried to put as little a buffer between the player, the mountain, and the protagonist as they could. “We wanted to convey the realism, the humanity, the embodiment of your body, really, of the climb,” Leprince said.
That design philosophy led them to implement the survival mechanics the player has to contend with, including managing hunger, temperature, and skin health. “[We] spent a lot of time making you feel like you’re in her,” Leprince told GameRant.
“We really wanted to convey the grittiness of climbing and how hard it is and how testing it is, and how you need to have mental strength and motivation and determination to be climbing, especially an 8000 meter, like Aava does.”
“And, of course, the question we’re asking in Cairn is, why do people climb and take so many chances and leave so much behind to be there on the mountain? So that’s also something we really wanted to let the player experience themselves.”
Building The Game One Hold at a Time
The team essentially had to create a whole new type of gameplay system, which, between figuring out the controls and level design, Leprince said it took years to get right. In an age where yellow paint is the king of climbing in video games, The Game Bakers had to figure out a way to indicate where the player should go without making it too obvious. And that lack of a clear route helped them set Cairn‘s pace.
“The best way to make players slow down is to give them a lot of choices and decisions and tactical decisions to make per minute,” Leprince said.
“By giving [players] so much freedom, and not telling them where to go, only telling them that’s the system, then they have to study and think, ‘Oh, I’m going to go this way. I’m going to do this, and then, oh, I see this. I’m going to maybe try to do a detour.’ Then it became natural that we didn’t need the game to go fast.”
One of the most intrinsic parts of climbing is patience and not moving too quickly. Every movement should be slow, steady, and intentional. Plotting the best route and going over equipment takes time. In climbing, nothing should be rushed. The Game Bakers were able to convey this to the player through the methodical gameplay systems and Aava’s design.
Aava can sprint, but not for long. She can use a fast walk, but it damages her to do so. Slowing the player down to put the focus on Aava, her journey, and the world around her were all very intentional choices. “I don’t know any climber who really runs between climbs,” Leprince joked. “It’s a time to rest, to breathe, to enjoy yourself and the beautiful mountain.”
Crafting the World of Cairn
Climbing was the focus, but the world that Aava exists in and the mountain itself are just as important to Cairn. The team worked with French comic artist Mathieu Bablet to create the game’s signature, stylized, cel-shaded look. According to Leprince, Bablet is one of the largest up-and-coming comic artists in France. It was also Bablet’s first time working on a video game.
“I think the result is fantastic,” Leprince said, “A lot of the inspiration comes from mature work, and a lot of the inspiration comes from just the mountains themselves. There’s nothing more beautiful than the rural world.”
The art style was just one aspect of setting Cairn’s tone and feel. It’s a very textured game – the team wanted players to feel the rocks beneath Aava’s hands, hear the wind, the rain, and the crunch of grass beneath her feet. To accomplish that, The Game Bakers recruited Audio Director Martin Stig Andersen, who’s worked on titles such as Limbo, Inside, and Control.
“[Andersen was] the guy who was crushing bones to create the sounds of Limbo and recording inside a skull. That’s his level of data and precision,” Leprince said. He set to work with one of Aava’s two voice actors, Sophia Eleni, to record 6,000 to 8,000 breathing and effort sounds.
“[Eleni] was doing push-ups, upside down, running, pretending to be hit and hurt, shouting. I have videos of Martin with her, and she records hours and hours of effort and grunts and breathing and pain sounds. And Martin just composed this magical landscape that feels so natural that people can know what’s happening even if their eyes are closed,” Leprince said.
Aava was also voiced by Camille Constantin Da Silva, who handled much of the character’s singing. Eleni recorded most of Aava’s dialogue.
“[Eleni] put so much humanity and fragility in Aava, and even managed to really reinforce the sense of dry humor that the character has,” Leprince said. “Because everybody says Aava is stern, almost unpleasant. Sophia managed to make her, in some of her lines, a little bit more human and friendly and touching and to show the fragility behind the determination of this super strong climber.”
The sound design and voice work aren’t only used to create the world’s atmosphere, they’re also used for gameplay cues for the player. The way stamina was approached by the team was very intentional. When Aava struggles, the player can hear it through her pained grunts and heavy breathing. Her limbs start to shake, and unless the player recently placed protective gear in the wall, Aava is likely to fall to her death.
“You could have stamina meters all the time going with numbers; red and orange and green. So we removed all of that,” Leprince said. “This is why we spend so much time on the sound design, on the camera, on the animation, on the acting of the characters. You could just know what’s happening without seeing those gauges.”
She said early on in Cairn’s development, they originally had an obvious prompt that indicated to the player when Aava grabbed a good hold. But they removed it after realizing they no longer needed it. It didn’t fit into their minimalist approach to Cairn’s gameplay.
“The sound is enough to tell you if it’s a good hold or not a good hold. So we removed everything, to make it as minimalist and as focused on new feelings and being immersed in the experience,” Leprince said.
What’s next for Cairn?
“We are already working on more content for Cairn, and we’ll announce all of that in the coming months,” she said. “And hopefully it’s not going to take us two years, so you can enjoy it sooner than that. But yes, we have plans to continue a little bit more.”
Leprince went on to say that Cairn is a complete experience as is, which could mean Aava’s story isn’t likely the focus of the new content. The team will announce more specifics when they’re ready, and it sounds like there will be plenty of climbers ready for another ascent when they do.
- Released
-
January 29, 2026
- Developer(s)
-
The Game Bakers
- Publisher(s)
-
The Game Bakers
- Number of Players
-
Single-player
- Steam Deck Compatibility
-
Verified
