One of the nicer Industry Trends of the past few years has been the rise and rise and rise of climbing sims. It turns out climbing is a source of many emotions, from the melancholy wonder of Jusant through the savage loneliness of Lorn’s Lure to the slapstick camaraderie of Peak and the agony of various Sisyphus sims. Also Celeste. And I guess we should mention Getting Over It here? See, it’s an absolute avalanche.
Cairn is on the somber side. Created by The Game Bakers, it’s about a woman with bandaged legs and a scuttling robo buddy. She’s trying to reach the top of a mysterious mountain, with a selection of routes to choose from and a backpack inventory to manage. I get the sense that there’s more up there than goats, snow and the tents of fellow climbers. We will find out shortly, for Cairn is on sale now on Steam.
Nic (RPS in peace) was impressed by the Cairn demo back in December 2024, even though the leg animations gave him funny emotions. Fortunately, Nic’s funny emotions make for entertaining reading.
“No graceful, contextual, restrictive animations for Cairn,” he wrote. “No sirree! You’ll also be carefully balancing your supplies, and using pitons as quick checkpoints as you make your ascent. You’ll be thinking about things like posture, effort and balance while climbing. ‘Each wall feels like a boss fight,’ says Steam. Do…the mountains do the spinny FromSoft thing? I’d love that.”
I do wonder how much of today’s flourishing climbing genre is a delayed reaction against the success of Assassin’s Creed – the game that ‘fixed’ videogame climbing back in the noughties by transforming it into a fluid spectacle of semi-automated ledge grabs and cornering. Remember videogame climbing before Assassin’s Creed? It was all vikings doing pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake at murky vine textures. Still, there’s only so many synchronisation towers you can auto-parkour before you want to get your fingertips dusty again.
Cairn is another change of tune for The Game Bakers, hitherto known for the nimble RPG snogging of Haven and the gimlet-eyed boss-rushing of Furi. Also the *squints* cephalopoddy eco activism of Squids Odyssey. What will they bake for us next? A martial arts romcom set in an alpine seafood restaurant? It’s a martial arts romcom set in an alpine seafood restaurant, isn’t it. I am giving The Game Bakers 24 hours to deny this, before I write it up as a news story.
