You can play the demo for heavy-breathing open world mountain climber Cairn now

rockpapershotgun.com:

“So, you’ve fallen off a mountain,” strikes me as a brilliant book to write and then stock in every mountainside gift shop across the land, purely for the image of a falling climber rapidly scanning the pages as they tumble comically to their doom, searching for the one piece of sage advice that might alleviate their predicament. If you, personally, are reading RPS while falling off a mountain at this very moment, I’m afraid I can’t help you. Luckily, if you bonk your head on Steam on the way down, you’ll find a demo for stylish open world climbing game Cairn, which should hopefully distract you from your imminent pancaking.

Cairn is from The Game Bakers, of Furi and Haven fame. We first saw it at the Day Of The Devs this year. I was fresh off the lovely Jusant at the time. “Ah, another relaxing and whimsical French game about mountain climbing!” I thought. I was a fool. It’s far more intense, this one, although there are dashes of Breath Of The Wild and Death Stranding to add some whimsy and wonder to your Sisyphean struggle. Plus, it's very pretty. Here’s some new footage, or possibly some old footage depending on badly the embargo has messed up my schedule.

I already said this at the time, but it bears repeating: look how weird those legs are! Look how bendy and awkwardly they contort. That, to me, is the surefire sign of a considered and reactive simulation. No graceful, contextual, restrictive animations for Cairn. 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.

The demo bills itself as the first hour of the game, and says you’ll have access to full features, including “the freedom to climb anywhere”. This is obviously a lie right off the bat, for ‘anywhere’ surely includes the second hour of the