Cairn

The game

You play Aava, a mountaineer attempting the first ascent of Mount Kami. You can climb anywhere: you plan your route, place your hands and feet, hammer in pitons and manage your supplies to survive. The Steam page calls it a “survival-climber”. The game is fully translated into French.

Noisy Pixel describes the survival side: you watch your stamina, thirst, hunger and later your body temperature, and make room in a gridless backpack where you sometimes have to leave items behind.

What the press says (PS5 reviews)

Reception is excellent. CGMagazine (10/10) explains that the constant choices while climbing make it feel visceral without tipping into frustration: every fall feels like your own mistake. GameCritics and CD-Action also give it 10/10; CD-Action’s reviewer calls it one of the best indie games ever. Noisy Pixel (9/10) now counts it among its favourite games of all time.

A few technical flaws come up. Game Informer (9.25/10) reports frame glitches and pauses, a climbing system that sometimes breaks and causes weird falls, checkpoints that can be too far apart and a camera that is frustrating at times. Noisy Pixel, on a pre-release build, saw the physics break a few times and a frame rate that only occasionally reached 60fps on a base PS5. FingerGuns (9/10) warns that this slow, contemplative game may turn away the casual crowd.

Our reading

The six PS5 reviews range from 9/10 to 10/10. Cairn is for players who enjoy demanding, methodical challenges and understated storytelling. Those looking for fast action should look elsewhere. The displayed average is computed by the site from the six PS5 scores.