It’s finally here; after a tumultuous few years of will-they-won’t-they development, Edmund McMillen (The Binding of Isaac’s creator) and his frequent collaborator Tyler Glaiel (for The End is Nigh and Aether) are finally ready to share their latest creation – Mewgenics.

Mewgenics is a game that does exactly what it says on the tin – its core mechanic is selective cat breeding – but if you’re looking for a life simulator, that it is not. Instead, you’ll march your army of superpowered pussycats through harsh battlefields (read: sewers, junkyards, and other such dismal settings), fight your way through turn-based encounters against grotesque foes, and develop winning formulas that will eventually lead your feline friends to victory.

It’s a surprisingly compelling and complex game, offering ample collectible items, a healthy number of achievements, and plenty of replayability. If you spent the 2010s haunting the virtual halls of Newgrounds or playing titles like The Binding of Isaac and Super Meat Boy, you’ll feel the warm embrace of nostalgia, but you won’t get bored quickly thanks to the creative ways Mewgenics plays with the roguelite formula. It’s unforgiving, in places, and won’t always let you take the easy route, but it’s great fun the whole way through.

That same strength could be a weakness for some players; the raunchy humor, slightly monstrous art style, and energetic dialogue might register as dated to some. Stripped away from its tone, however, the game still stands as a thoroughly enjoyable, well-paced, and amply versatile addition to your Steam library. Plus, it’s Steam Deck compatible, where it feels right at home.

No purr-lace like home

Welcome to Boon County, where the cats are cute, the real estate market is booming, and both of those statements are only half true. In this rundown part of town lies your humble home, a shack-like property inhabited by your collection of cats. From these modest beginnings shall spring forth legend, however, because it’s here you’ll collect, breed, and care for a cat army.

That means ensuring there’s enough food, cleaning up their waste (and, er... corpses, occasionally), decorating your home, and shopping for both supplies and in-level items. You can also prune the genetic pool by shipping off cats to allies you’ll meet along the way to unlock various features and perks, so from the get-go, there’s plenty of macro management to dig your teeth into.

Along that vein, it’s important not to underestimate the importance of this hub; even in the early game, the cats you keep around shape the outcomes of the battles to come, whether that’s due to the mutations and stats they carry or because they have a penchant for infighting and can leave permanent injuries on one another.

When you’ve had your fill of cat care and it’s time to end the day, your cats can choose to fight each other or mate, leaving you with new messes to clean up. Later in the game, it’s possible to steer these interactions a little more by seconding your cats in groups as you gain new rooms for your shack. I had great fun selectively breeding in some mutations that I found especially cute, even if they did come at the detriment of some of my cats; I can’t help it, their goofy little snaggle teeth are irresistible.

New strays will also arrive each day, offering an easy way to fill out your party when you’re low on soldiers, or the gene pool is getting too slim. Over time, though, stockpiles will run low, and at that point, you can venture out with four cats of your choice to battle foes and bring home vital supplies like food and money; and here’s where the meat of the game begins.

I can’t fight this feline anymore

Upon selecting your chosen warriors, you’ll be able to assign them to one of four classes to begin with; this increases to more than 12 over time, each with unique abilities and passives that you’ll curate over the course of your travels; those, too, can be passed on to descendants. There are over 1,200 abilities and passive traits in the game, so no two runs will play the same – this variation made the game pretty hard to put down.

There are seven stats each cat will come pre-loaded with: strength (melee and damage), dexterity (range and damage), constitution (HP and regeneration), intelligence (mana regeneration), speed (initiative and movement), charisma (max mana), and luck (chance-based events like critical rolls).

Based on these, certain classes will align better with different cats, but the further you get in the game, and the more chaotic your approach to breeding has been, the more often you’ll find yourself with some pretty busted combinations.

I managed to score a necromancer carrying many cleric traits, loaded it up with a bunch of perks for healing, and created the most monstrously good wham-bulance (high damage, high heal) since I discovered the Soraka/Yuumi bottom lane combination in League of Legends. A niche reference point, but if you know, you know.

After equipping any items you may have to boost stats and grant new abilities to your kitties, it’s time to head out on the road, where you’ll face enemies ranging from zombie kitties to strange psychic eldritch beasts, tom cats to bomb-lobbing mousers, and beyond in randomized battle encounters.

There’s a fantastic range of enemies to fight (over 200), each with their own abilities and behaviours; a personal favorite is a pair of giant shark cats, which I realised all too late can devour your brave soldiers in one bite – and there’s no coming back from this particular death.

Outside of perma-death situations (which there are quite a few of!), enemies will down your teammates, and their fainted bodies can take damage three times before exploding into chunks of bone and meat.

This is more than just an inconvenience in-fight; each time one of your cats becomes downed, it will pick up conditions like injuries and jinxes. Sure, they’ll heal up a little at the end of combat, but these injuries limit their stats for the rest of the run, and items or abilities that cure these conditions are few and far between.

Speaking of which, in between battles, you’ll pick up various items (of which there are over 900) and face different encounters. In these encounters, a random party member will choose from different stat-based options, and, based on your stat points, a probability-based outcome decides if the interaction helps or hinders your crew.

The luck element of the game is often cruel, and there’s no room for sentimentality with your party; your front-line soldiers will die sometimes, and when that happens, you run the risk of losing everything you gained in the process.

A game that keeps on giving

There are multiple pathways to travel, starting with the Alley and branching off to the Sewer and Graveyard. These lead on to the Caves and the Junkyard, respectively, and that’s just in the first act. Later, you’ll unlock more roads to travel with their own challenges. For example, in the Desert, the extreme heat leads to health loss over time unless you keep your cats cool and watered.

Survive a run, and you’ll be able to take your newly buffed up cats back home, where they’ll retire (likely into your selective breeding programme) and no longer be able to go out on battles – with a few exceptions.

All the above is basically just a precursor to the game in its entirety; I’ve played a solid 30 hours, and I’m still only 20% of the way through. There’s a reported over 200 hours of gameplay, so I’ve no concerns about tiring too quickly of Mewgenics. I’d assume that’s before you factor in unlockable achievements, too, meaning much like The Binding of Isaac, I expect superfans to see hours well into the thousands worth of kitty cat combat.

It helps that the game has excellent music, consistently great art, and some really well-designed levels. Some of the boss fight song lyrics had me chuckling even as my ill-fated kitties erupted into a spray of body parts and blood, and the rest of the soundtrack has enough pace and variation to keep me locked in to the addictive gameplay loop.

Every time I’ve sat down to play, I’ve unlocked some fresh hell for my cats to endure – one of the latest is a monstrous doomsday cat called Guillotina, who turns up at my cats’ home every week or so to fight retired cats.

The chaos is almost certain to continue amplifying as I delve further into the world of these calamitous kitties, and while I don’t know if it will have such a broad appeal as the comparatively simple The Binding of Isaac, I hope long-time fans of it and other creative roguelikes in the genre will give it its due. I certainly intend to!

Should you play Mewgenics?

Play it if...

Don't play it if...

Accessibility features

Mewgenics is hit-or-miss with accessibility; there are no subtitle adjustments, difficulty adjustments or colorblind settings, but text boxes are pretty large by default and you can change the size of UI elements like the status bar, tooltip size and adjust the noise and grain and flicker levels. The controls are mappable, too. Some more work could be done here; a clearer font and colorblind settings wouldn’t go amiss, but hopefully that’s something we see in a later update.

How I reviewed Mewgenics

I spent over 30 hours in Mewgenics, covering the first act and most of the second as well as some side quests; enough to get a good sense of the gameplay, though I’m sure there’s plenty still to come as the game goes on.

I played on both my gaming laptop (Dell’s Alienware M16 R1) and my Steam Deck paired with my Corsair Void v2 MAX Wireless gaming headset, and it played wonderfully on both.

First reviewed January-February 2026

It’s finally here; after a tumultuous few years of will-they-won’t-they development, Edmund McMillen (The Binding of Isaac’s creator) and his frequent collaborator Tyler Glaiel (for The End is Nigh and Aether) are finally ready to share their latest creation – Mewgenics.

Mewgenics is a game that does exactly what it says on the tin – its core mechanic is selective cat breeding – but if you’re looking for a life simulator, that it is not. Instead, you’ll march your army of superpowered pussycats through harsh battlefields (read: sewers, junkyards, and other such dismal settings), fight your way through turn-based encounters against grotesque foes, and develop winning formulas that will eventually lead your feline friends to victory.

It’s a surprisingly compelling and complex game, offering ample collectible items, a healthy number of achievements, and plenty of replayability. If you spent the 2010s haunting the virtual halls of Newgrounds or playing titles like The Binding of Isaac and Super Meat Boy, you’ll feel the warm embrace of nostalgia, but you won’t get bored quickly thanks to the creative ways Mewgenics plays with the roguelite formula. It’s unforgiving, in places, and won’t always let you take the easy route, but it’s great fun the whole way through.

That same strength could be a weakness for some players; the raunchy humor, slightly monstrous art style, and energetic dialogue might register as dated to some. Stripped away from its tone, however, the game still stands as a thoroughly enjoyable, well-paced, and amply versatile addition to your Steam library. Plus, it’s Steam Deck compatible, where it feels right at home.

No purr-lace like home

Welcome to Boon County, where the cats are cute, the real estate market is booming, and both of those statements are only half true. In this rundown part of town lies your humble home, a shack-like property inhabited by your collection of cats. From these modest beginnings shall spring forth legend, however, because it’s here you’ll collect, breed, and care for a cat army.

That means ensuring there’s enough food, cleaning up their waste (and, er... corpses, occasionally), decorating your home, and shopping for both supplies and in-level items. You can also prune the genetic pool by shipping off cats to allies you’ll meet along the way to unlock various features and perks, so from the get-go, there’s plenty of macro management to dig your teeth into.

Along that vein, it’s important not to underestimate the importance of this hub; even in the early game, the cats you keep around shape the outcomes of the battles to come, whether that’s due to the mutations and stats they carry or because they have a penchant for infighting and can leave permanent injuries on one another.

When you’ve had your fill of cat care and it’s time to end the day, your cats can choose to fight each other or mate, leaving you with new messes to clean up. Later in the game, it’s possible to steer these interactions a little more by seconding your cats in groups as you gain new rooms for your shack. I had great fun selectively breeding in some mutations that I found especially cute, even if they did come at the detriment of some of my cats; I can’t help it, their goofy little snaggle teeth are irresistible.

New strays will also arrive each day, offering an easy way to fill out your party when you’re low on soldiers, or the gene pool is getting too slim. Over time, though, stockpiles will run low, and at that point, you can venture out with four cats of your choice to battle foes and bring home vital supplies like food and money; and here’s where the meat of the game begins.

I can’t fight this feline anymore

Upon selecting your chosen warriors, you’ll be able to assign them to one of four classes to begin with; this increases to more than 12 over time, each with unique abilities and passives that you’ll curate over the course of your travels; those, too, can be passed on to descendants. There are over 1,200 abilities and passive traits in the game, so no two runs will play the same – this variation made the game pretty hard to put down.

There are seven stats each cat will come pre-loaded with: strength (melee and damage), dexterity (range and damage), constitution (HP and regeneration), intelligence (mana regeneration), speed (initiative and movement), charisma (max mana), and luck (chance-based events like critical rolls).

Based on these, certain classes will align better with different cats, but the further you get in the game, and the more chaotic your approach to breeding has been, the more often you’ll find yourself with some pretty busted combinations.

I managed to score a necromancer carrying many cleric traits, loaded it up with a bunch of perks for healing, and created the most monstrously good wham-bulance (high damage, high heal) since I discovered the Soraka/Yuumi bottom lane combination in League of Legends. A niche reference point, but if you know, you know.

After equipping any items you may have to boost stats and grant new abilities to your kitties, it’s time to head out on the road, where you’ll face enemies ranging from zombie kitties to strange psychic eldritch beasts, tom cats to bomb-lobbing mousers, and beyond in randomized battle encounters.

There’s a fantastic range of enemies to fight (over 200), each with their own abilities and behaviours; a personal favorite is a pair of giant shark cats, which I realised all too late can devour your brave soldiers in one bite – and there’s no coming back from this particular death.

Outside of perma-death situations (which there are quite a few of!), enemies will down your teammates, and their fainted bodies can take damage three times before exploding into chunks of bone and meat.

This is more than just an inconvenience in-fight; each time one of your cats becomes downed, it will pick up conditions like injuries and jinxes. Sure, they’ll heal up a little at the end of combat, but these injuries limit their stats for the rest of the run, and items or abilities that cure these conditions are few and far between.

Speaking of which, in between battles, you’ll pick up various items (of which there are over 900) and face different encounters. In these encounters, a random party member will choose from different stat-based options, and, based on your stat points, a probability-based outcome decides if the interaction helps or hinders your crew.

The luck element of the game is often cruel, and there’s no room for sentimentality with your party; your front-line soldiers will die sometimes, and when that happens, you run the risk of losing everything you gained in the process.

A game that keeps on giving

There are multiple pathways to travel, starting with the Alley and branching off to the Sewer and Graveyard. These lead on to the Caves and the Junkyard, respectively, and that’s just in the first act. Later, you’ll unlock more roads to travel with their own challenges. For example, in the Desert, the extreme heat leads to health loss over time unless you keep your cats cool and watered.

Survive a run, and you’ll be able to take your newly buffed up cats back home, where they’ll retire (likely into your selective breeding programme) and no longer be able to go out on battles – with a few exceptions.

All the above is basically just a precursor to the game in its entirety; I’ve played a solid 30 hours, and I’m still only 20% of the way through. There’s a reported over 200 hours of gameplay, so I’ve no concerns about tiring too quickly of Mewgenics. I’d assume that’s before you factor in unlockable achievements, too, meaning much like The Binding of Isaac, I expect superfans to see hours well into the thousands worth of kitty cat combat.

It helps that the game has excellent music, consistently great art, and some really well-designed levels. Some of the boss fight song lyrics had me chuckling even as my ill-fated kitties erupted into a spray of body parts and blood, and the rest of the soundtrack has enough pace and variation to keep me locked in to the addictive gameplay loop.

Every time I’ve sat down to play, I’ve unlocked some fresh hell for my cats to endure – one of the latest is a monstrous doomsday cat called Guillotina, who turns up at my cats’ home every week or so to fight retired cats.

The chaos is almost certain to continue amplifying as I delve further into the world of these calamitous kitties, and while I don’t know if it will have such a broad appeal as the comparatively simple The Binding of Isaac, I hope long-time fans of it and other creative roguelikes in the genre will give it its due. I certainly intend to!

Should you play Mewgenics?

Play it if...

Don't play it if...

Accessibility features

Mewgenics is hit-or-miss with accessibility; there are no subtitle adjustments, difficulty adjustments or colorblind settings, but text boxes are pretty large by default and you can change the size of UI elements like the status bar, tooltip size and adjust the noise and grain and flicker levels. The controls are mappable, too. Some more work could be done here; a clearer font and colorblind settings wouldn’t go amiss, but hopefully that’s something we see in a later update.

How I reviewed Mewgenics

I spent over 30 hours in Mewgenics, covering the first act and most of the second as well as some side quests; enough to get a good sense of the gameplay, though I’m sure there’s plenty still to come as the game goes on.

I played on both my gaming laptop (Dell’s Alienware M16 R1) and my Steam Deck paired with my Corsair Void v2 MAX Wireless gaming headset, and it played wonderfully on both.

First reviewed January-February 2026

Six years since the last game (and after a brief trip over to Ancient China in Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty), Team Ninja’s premier soulslike series returns with Nioh 3. And my word, was it worth the wait.

Nioh 3 will feel familiar to fans of the other two titles in, but it’s clearly taken inspiration from other Team Ninja games that were released in the interim. Here we have the addition of a semi-open-world akin to Rise of the Ronin, and even a new style shift mechanic that isn’t wholly unlike the moveset variety of Ninja Gaiden 4 or Stranger of Paradise: Final Fantasy Origin.

In short, Nioh 3 feels like a culmination of most things Team Ninja has put out over the past decade. It’s a brilliant evolution of what makes the series so special in the first place, maintaining that lightning-fast combat and dizzying build variety.

Meanwhile, the formula has evolved to bring something entirely fresh to the table. As much as I adore Nioh 2 and think it’s one of the best soulslike games out there, I don’t know if I can go back after the brilliance of Nioh 3.

Though as much as I’ve loved my time with Team Ninja’s latest outing, there are undoubtedly blemishes. Performance on PC is a bit all over the place; graphics options are plentiful, but the game does struggle in denser environments and has a habit of forcing DLSS, at least on my rig.

As for the game itself, Ninja Style - which I love, by the way - does feel a little over-tuned. Few enemies are able to keep up with your high evasion in this style, and the trade-off of not being able to replenish your stamina via a Ki Pulse (an ability that refills a portion of stamina with a carefully-timed R1 press) isn’t much of a downside.

Aspects of Nioh 3 like this, as well as the ability to fast-travel between shrines, freely respec at any time, and the sheer versatility offered by the style switching system, make for a game that feels overall a little easier than prior entries.

While not as much of a cakewalk as Wo Long felt at times (with its immensely generous parry system, especially), there’s a much more lenient difficulty curve in Nioh 3 that should feel more welcoming to newcomers, but could frustrate series diehards who may not feel reasonably challenged until much later sections of the game.

Shifting across time

In the original Nioh, players took on the role of a set character - Irish swordsman William. Nioh 2 gave us agency to create our own characters, albeit relegating us to an unnamed protagonist.

Nioh 3, meanwhile, feels like a combination of both. We play as a character known as Tokugawa Takechiyo, though we still have full control over their appearance and gender via the returning character creator.

After a brief tutorial section, Takechiyo is thrust back in time to the Warring States period of Japanese history when their brother, Kunimatsu, enacts a coup brought on by jealousy of Takechiyo being chosen to succeed the seat of the shogun. There, players will side with Tokugawa Ieyasu in an effort to prevent legendary warlord Takeda Shingen - in league with an army of yokai - from claiming the seat for himself.

It all starts off in typical Nioh fashion. You’ll pair up with (or face off against) known figures from the Warring States period, including Hattori Hanzo and Ii Naotora. And roving bandits will be the least of your worries, as once again, Japan has been overrun by yokai - demonic entities that take on several monstrous forms.

The Nioh games usually take place over a number of years, but Nioh 3 has expanded this concept and features events across multiple generations at various periods of time - each one offering a whole new map to explore. I was greatly surprised at the variety of locales on offer, and Team Ninja has done a wonderful job providing a broad range of settings, some of which very much came out of leftfield.

It takes two (styles)

So how’s combat, then? Well, Team Ninja has taken a boldly different approach this time around. The core gimmick of Nioh 3’s combat is its dual styles. Samurai Style is, broadly, Nioh as you know it.

You can switch between mid, high, and low stances for a variety of different moves depending on your weapon type of choice. New here, though, are Martial Arts, which you can activate upon filling a gauge by landing attacks or successfully guarding. The style feels a good bit stronger and weightier than what I was used to in Nioh 2.

That provides a noticeable divide between Samurai and Ninja styles. The latter, then, is a much more agile form. You move much quicker in combat, and your dodging ability and attack speed are greatly enhanced. As mentioned, Ninja’s trade-off is that you can’t recover Ki via Ki Pulses, as you can in Samurai Style. However, you recover Ki very quickly while in this form, thus offsetting the drawback a fair bit, at least in the first half of the game before the challenge level really ramps up.

Ninja Style was definitely my preferred way to play much of Nioh 3. And given that Samurai and Ninja have their own unique weapon types and armor sets - of which you can form loadouts for both - you certainly can pick one style and stick with it. But as I progressed through the game, I found plenty of scenarios that played to the strengths of both.

Ninja’s ability to use magic, for example, makes it great for crowd control and dispatching enemies with elemental weaknesses. Samurai is fantastic in one-on-one duels against tougher opponents, though, as proper use of Martial Arts can quickly drain an opponent’s Ki for a quick and easy critical hit.

Get out there

Nioh 3’s shift to open field level design brings many, many worthwhile changes with it. You’ll no longer pick missions from a simple map screen. Instead, more detailed levels are baked into a larger, explorable environment.

Each explorable area is divided into smaller parts, each with an exploration level. You’ll passively increase this as you explore, including finding new shrines, treasure chests, or clearing bases overrun by bandits or yokai. Increasing the exploration level of an area will gradually reveal things you can find within.

Getting as much exploration done as possible is certainly worth it, too. You’ll often find textbooks that allow you to learn new skills and Martial Arts, as well as no shortage of Samurai and Ninja’s Locks. These automatically grant you a skill point for their respective style and the weapon types therein. No longer do you have to grind out weapon usage in order to earn these skill points. If you find a new weapon type you’re desperate to try, you can load some points into it with little hassle.

That’s doubly true in Nioh 3, as you can freely reset and reallocate skill points at zero cost. I love this change, as it means you’re more actively encouraged to settle into a build that’s right for you.

Like in Code Vein 2, if you fancy a quick build change in Nioh 3, it’s blissfully easy to do. This also goes for your more general stats, which you level up at shrines. And handily, a diagram on this screen will let you know which stats work best for each weapon type. Super convenient, and means you’ll be spending less time stressing over builds, and more time trying them out.

Thorough exploration also ties into the revamped Titles system, which is now broken down into categories and offers various permanent buffs and stat increases, such as healing item drop rates, stealth effectiveness (yes, you’ll really be racking up the backstabs in Nioh 3), and general melee attack damage against certain foes. Basically, actions like taking over bases or simply dispatching enemies in either Style will earn you points in their respective categories, which you can periodically redeem in the Titles menu.

There’s just a lot of stuff that contributes to your overall power in Nioh 3. To the point where it can make the first couple of chapters a bit of a cakewalk. Bosses, by and large, still present a steep challenge, and you’ll still run into a fair few gatekeepers to your progress. But overall, I’d say Nioh 3 is a touch easier than its direct predecessor.

Feeling the heat

That is, of course, until you reach one of several Crucible areas. Crucibles are another addition I really love. Effectively acting as mid and end-of-chapter levels, a Crucible is an enormous yokai realm that comes with various gameplay modifiers - one of which is a reduction to your maximum health upon taking damage.

This makes Crucibles particularly dangerous. However, the rewards for exploring within are very much worth it, as it’s in these areas that you’ll typically find higher-end gear and earn more experience generally upon killing enemies. Crucibles are definitely a step-up in difficulty, and the demonic tone shift within them provides a suitably climactic bookend to each major area.

I didn’t think it was possible for Team Ninja to one-up Nioh 2 in as many ways as it has with Nioh 3, but I’m beyond pleased that it does. It’s a fresh-feeling take on the soulslike formula in general, combining Nioh’s satisfyingly quick action with a richer, more fleshed-out world to explore.

The game could definitely use some work on PC in the performance department, and there are certainly some enemy types I wish the developer had left in the past (the snake-like Nure-Onna is the bane of my existence). But crucially, it’s a game I’ve often been unable to put down, if only to see what kinds of wonderful locations and bosses await around each and every corner.

Should I play Nioh 3?

Play it if...

Don't play it if...

Accessibility

Nioh 3 has some basic accessibility options. Full controller assignment and keybinds are supported. Furthermore, subtitle options include size and the ability to display the speaker, and sound effect captions.

Colorblind settings are limited, but there does exist an option to alter the color perception settings of important text and loot rarity color patterns. There is also an option for the game to play a sound effect when you get near an object that you can interact with, such as doors, characters, and items.

How I reviewed Nioh 3

My playthrough of Nioh 3 lasted around 50 hours, including the main campaign and a huge chunk of exploration and side objectives.

I played the game on PC (via Steam) for this review, with an Nvidia GeForce RTX 5060 GPU and primarily using the 8BitDo Ultimate 2 as my controller of choice. I also made use of the Nacon RIG 900 Max HS gaming headset to experience the game’s atmospheric audio design.

First reviewed February 2026

In Cairn, almost every person Aava meets as she ascends Mount Kami and every loved one who leaves her messages from back home, all continuously ask the same question: “Why are you attempting this climb?” It’s a question I kept asking myself when another slip cost me many minutes of careful progress, when my backpack was bereft of food and drink, and when I couldn’t see a clear path upwards. We shared the same answer, though. Sheer stubbornness and dogged determination to reach the top of the damn thing.

It’s amazing what innate and primal feelings an ultimately pointless challenge to climb a big mountain can draw out from us. It’s the same push that’s driven people into keyboard-smashing and mouse-crushing rage just to complete Bennett Foddy’s ridiculous climbers GIRP and Getting Over It.

Cairn, the climbing adventure from French-based developers, The Game Bakers, thrives on exactly that same desire to conquer a seemingly insurmountable task. And it fully commits to that idea. Sure, there is a well-written story, some charming characters, and a few other elements thrown in, but this is a game where you’ll spend 15 hours or more carefully and deliberately climbing a mountain – and probably falling a few dozen times, too.

Why do we fall, Bruce?

It starts, though, in a climbing gym. A place that’s very familiar to me, as I’ve been indoor bouldering for over three years now. While there’s a minimal UI and no in-depth tutorial, the controls and the objective are obvious here, with clearly labelled handholds to guide you.

Getting to grips with the controls doesn’t take too long. You simply control one limb at a time, move it to where you want to go within reach, and press a button to set it down in that position, with Aava grasping an edge or planting her foot if possible. I did experience some clipping through the walls and unnatural limb positions, but these glitches seem inevitable when there’s so much freedom to choose your path.

The game automatically picks which limb it feels is best to move each time based on your balance and weight distribution. I found it works well the majority of the time, though it can cause issues in more panicked moments if the wrong body part you didn’t want to move suddenly comes away from the wall and leaves you in trouble. There is an option to choose which specific limb to use manually, which I made the most of when tackling some risky sections, but you shouldn’t need it for every movement.

I do like to think that my climbing experience helped me to understand and work out an approach to some of the game’s problems, especially when I got to exploit some ideas or techniques that I’ve picked up or seen implemented by others. I think that speaks to The Game Baker’s dedication to getting its core climbing mechanics right, that you can find your way through some routes with genuine climbing technique.

This isn’t intended as a boast, but I do wonder how well Cairn will play out to someone with zero experience of or interest in climbing. We are far from the obvious handholds and clearly directed paths of an Uncharted or an Assassin’s Creed game, a further step from the more arcade-y and puzzle-based climbs of Jusant, and not even close to the ludicrousness of a Bennett Foddy-like.

There are maps and guides you can find in some areas of the mountain, but these offer little more than a difficulty gradient and an intended line up increasingly treacherous rock faces of Kam – the specifics of how you follow it are up to you to solve. And you don’t really get feedback on your moves until you’ve made them. Something that may look good could actually put Aava under huge stress, her arms and legs shaking as the camera slowly zooms in to warn you that a fall is imminent unless you change something.

A meditative state

So, Cairn isn’t easy, and the path to the top is littered with reminders of past climbers who have abandoned their ascent, gone missing during a climb, or died attempting the challenge.

And yet, even in the face of all this, Aava and I continue to press on, because it’s so satisfying when everything goes just right. We’re unleashing the same screams of anguish, exclamations of exhaustion, and bursts of expletives every time we fall, but also entering the same meditative state when seeing a wall and unleashing the same roars of triumph after finally nailing a tricky section.

You’re rewarded for exploring areas or routes away from the obvious path as well, with a stunning vista that shows off the clean art style and gives the minimal audio a chance to stand out. You can also find food, items, secrets, and hidden points of interest that help further reveal Aava’s character, the lore of the mountain, and the lives of the community that used to live on it.

What I like most about this is that Cairn plays these straight. There are perhaps elements of mysticism and fantasy at play, but there is no grand reveal or bonkers conspiracy hidden in the mountain; instead, the aim is to simply expand the world, understand Aava better, and have a rest between climbs.

These moments of downtime, when you can set up your bivouac, are also when you need to engage most with the game’s survival elements. Foraging for food, collecting water, maintaining your health, and mending your climbing gear are all important parts to ensure you reach the top.

I could take or leave these distractions, which aren’t too obtrusive but also not massively engaging. Luckily, there’s a toggle to turn them off completely if you’d prefer, as well as a couple of other assist features that offer better fall protection and more auto-saves.

Much like The Game Bakers’ brilliant boss rush gauntlet, Furi, there’s a level of dedication to a singular idea in Cairn that might put off many who don’t gel with the concept. And even I’ll admit that the game’s punishing nature did make me want to give up multiple times – especially in its gruelling final sections.

But it all comes back to that repeated question: why climb the mountain? Well, when I climb, there’s little else quite so satisfying when you flash a route or puzzle a path through a seemingly impossible problem. When it clicks, Cairn offers exactly that, just on a much grander scale, and somewhere where I can experience it without giving up the safety of a comfy crash mat.

Should you play Cairn?

Play it if…

Don’t play it if…

Accessibility

Cairn offers fully remappable controls and size options for subtitles. Outside of that, the rest of the accessibility features are all to do with adjusting the difficulty of the climbing mechanics and intensity of the game’s survival systems.

With the former, you can switch on more obvious feedback when you grab holds and automatically skip some quick time events. For the latter, you can simply turn features on or off, including the need to eat or drink, the need to stock up and maintain your climbing equipment, the ability to quickly recover from a fall, and add more regular auto-saves.

How I reviewed Cairn

I played Cairn for around 18 hours on a PlayStation 5 Pro on a Samsung S90C OLED TV using a DualSense Wireless Controller. I also played a couple of sessions on the PlayStation Portal, which worked well but was a bit more fiddly than I would have preferred.

Audio was played through a Samsung HW-Q930C soundbar or SteelSeries Arctic Nova 7, which helped pick out the minimal yet effective audio design throughout the game.

While the main game took 15 hours to complete, there are reasons for multiple playthroughs if you want to find more secrets, try different routes, or tackle the terrifying 'free solo' mode, where you can't use pitons.

First reviewed January 2026