{"id":21773,"date":"2026-01-29T14:37:31","date_gmt":"2026-01-29T13:37:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/29\/cairn-review-obsession-suffering-and-awe-in-a-climbing-game-that-hits-exhausting-new-heights\/"},"modified":"2026-01-29T14:37:31","modified_gmt":"2026-01-29T13:37:31","slug":"cairn-review-obsession-suffering-and-awe-in-a-climbing-game-that-hits-exhausting-new-heights","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/2026\/01\/29\/cairn-review-obsession-suffering-and-awe-in-a-climbing-game-that-hits-exhausting-new-heights\/","title":{"rendered":"Cairn review \u2013 obsession, suffering and awe in a climbing game that hits exhausting new heights"},"content":{"rendered":"

PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox; The Game Bakers
<\/strong>A punishing, beautiful survival game that turns mountaineering into an intimate test of endurance, fixation and emotional resolve \u2013 you\u2019ll be in tears by the end<\/p>\n

Mountaineers and climbers, especially the free-solo kind, are humanity\u2019s most fascinating maniacs: single-minded, daring souls who throw themselves into profoundly optional life-endangering feats. It is hard not to be compelled, and appalled, by someone like Alex Honnold<\/a>. Even with <\/em>ropes, a single wrong move can mean death in mountaineering, a mad human activity that puts you at the full mercy of nature. You cannot help but wonder what kind of person willingly chooses this: what kind of person looks at a towering cliff face, or a wall of wind-whipped ice, and thinks, I bet I can get up there.<\/p>\n

Aava, Cairn\u2019s protagonist, is that kind of person: a champion climber, a woman who has conquered summit after summit, butand for some reason can\u2019t walk away. Before her stands Mount Kami, an ice-tipped, Himalayan-style peak that has never before been climbed. Kami was once home to a tribe of people, whose remnants you find as you pull yourself up each section of the mountain, but now you are very much alone. Controlling Aava\u2019s limbs, you move her hands and feet towards imperfections in the rock, jamming her fingers into cracks and her toes on to tiny ledges. You quickly learn to read the mountain, as Aava would.<\/p>\n

Continue reading…<\/a>
\nPC, PlayStation 5, Xbox; The Game BakersA punishing, beautiful survival game that turns mountaineering into an intimate test of endurance, fixation and emotional resolve \u2013 you\u2019ll be in tears by the end
\nMountaineers and climbers, especially the free-solo kind, are humanity\u2019s most fascinating maniacs: single-minded, daring souls who throw themselves into profoundly optional life-endangering feats. It is hard not to be compelled, and appalled, by someone like Alex Honnold. Even with ropes, a single wrong move can mean death in mountaineering, a mad human activity that puts you at the full mercy of nature. You cannot help but wonder what kind of person willingly chooses this: what kind of person looks at a towering cliff face, or a wall of wind-whipped ice, and thinks, I bet I can get up there.
\nAava, Cairn\u2019s protagonist, is that kind of person: a champion climber, a woman who has conquered summit after summit, butand for some reason can\u2019t walk away. Before her stands Mount Kami, an ice-tipped, Himalayan-style peak that has never before been climbed. Kami was once home to a tribe of people, whose remnants you find as you pull yourself up each section of the mountain, but now you are very much alone. Controlling Aava\u2019s limbs, you move her hands and feet towards imperfections in the rock, jamming her fingers into cracks and her toes on to tiny ledges. You quickly learn to read the mountain, as Aava would. Continue reading…Technology | The Guardian<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox; The Game BakersA punishing, beautiful survival game that turns mountaineering into an intimate test of endurance, fixation and emotional resolve \u2013 you\u2019ll be in tears by the end Mountaineers and climbers, especially the free-solo kind, are humanity\u2019s most fascinating maniacs: single-minded, daring souls who throw themselves into profoundly optional life-endangering feats. …<\/p>\n

Cairn review \u2013 obsession, suffering and awe in a climbing game that hits exhausting new heights<\/span> Read More »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":21774,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21773"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21773"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21773\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/costops.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}