One person’s journey climbing to the summit is perilous and unrelenting, the wave of the weather seems to be tenacious and one wrong move could be your death. Cairn is one example of how one person’s journey could be like that prompting a game immersed with its trappings. The world beyond the game solidifies the quality brazen in a protagonist’s sacrifice and emotional journey towards the summit and the choices of consequences that’s been overshadowed to that person’s will.
Cairn’s developer, The Game Baker, makers of Furi and Haven, two action-packed games that infuse its differential trappings by implementing elements of variety into it. While different, Cairn has one thing in common with those games, it is that they are all difficult although Haven is more of a Co-op action adventure, Furi is a hack-and-slash, bullet hell game that is very unforgiving to its players. Also like Haven, Cairn is narrative driven to the point that the story is compelling.
Last year, we got both Baby Steps and Peak, two games that have the same varying mechanics on controlling your character and both having the same sort of goal, I guess with Baby Steps, is the character finally able to relieve himself but it ended up on a mountain just like Peak did. You could say it's like Death Stranding too with its walking simulator base but it really controls like Baby Steps with its frustrating yet controls and daunting and edge of your seat gameplay, lifting your limbs one after another. It’s basically carrying the torch on the basis of gameplay with Cairn by how your character moves your cliffs while trying very hard not to slip and fall to your death. The game like Baby Steps is very intense and you really need to focus where you climb or else you fail and try again. One feature different from those games is that there is a contingency in case of fall off the cliff, there’s a rewinding feature, kinda like from Prince of Persia or the rewinding feature in Switch virtual games, where you can rewind to a moment where you can eventually continue your journey. The weather plays a part of the game, while comparing games like Peak, there are spots to pitch your tent and have a warm fire to heat up from the cold.
Although unlike Baby Steps with its ridiculous and goofy gameplay and story, Cairn takes another direction in its narrative, in its story. The story begins with an experienced mountain-climber, Aava whose goal is to reach the summit of a terrifying mountain that persists on its protagonist’s way. On her way, climbing the trematous and perilous mountain, she meets a class of characters like Marco that impacts the story and the sacrifices Aava has to go through while climbing the mountain. Its emotional rollercoaster of a compelling story containing the thrill of climbing a mountain and the journey that Aava’s been dealt with really is invigorating. The agonizing journey that first prompted Aava really carries the flame
Much to the game’s credit, there is a survival aspect to it, after a perilous journey climbing, you reach a save point where you can rest, craft and cook food and drinks and fix your trusted companion robot by repairing pitons. Resting energizes you with health refill and drinking and eating boosts up your thirst and the warmth of being heated in your tent. You can also wait and stall time that can change the weather as well. Throughout your journey climbing the mountain, you can pick up trash that can be utilized to repair your pitons and herbs and flowers that can be combined with water to make herbal teas that remedies your stats. There are hotspots in the game where you can pick up water but in limited quantities and an interesting fact, you can scoop up water while climbing although climbing where a waterfall can cause you to slip and fall.
Aava’s journey to the perilous mountains of a controversial summit is part of many ways of objectifying the grasp on its sacrifice and an emotional journey that emboldens it to its extent. The tenacity of howling winds and each step climbing up the base while not slipping and falling to your death really matters to this game. The narrative and gameplay that you play as Aava is really unforgiving to players at the start but really rewards you if you really take the time and effort to meticulously climb one limb after another up a mountain and the end result is really thrilling and remarkable. The sacrifices and the choices and consequences that Aava has endured truly makes accolades of a potential Game of the Year contender.