Don't let appearances fool you, the climbing sim isn't a sports game

It’s easy to box in Cairn, the latest from French studio The Game Bakers. Rendered in Mobius-like illustration and executed with intricate climbing mechanics, the story of a climber named Aava attempting her white whale, the seemingly insurmountable Mount Kami, could look simplistic or sporty at first scroll on Steam. But any player who makes it past the first cliff face, struggles to grip a puzzling rock formation as they reach for salvation, encounters one of the unlikely passersby encountered in respite, or plummets off the mountain only to be saved by a well-placed piton, knows there’s so much more psychology and physicality beating through the veins of Cairn.

Game Bakers co-founder and Cairn producer Audrey Leprince did not set out to “simulate climbing.” The vision was to build an action-adventure game about survival, obsession, sacrifice, and what drives someone to accomplish the impossible. With Cairn’s new DLC On the Trail: Deep Water out now, Leprince spoke to Polygon about scaling the project and working with director Emeric Thoa to produce a project more meaningful than a simple sports game.

[Ed. note: This interview has been edited and condensed for clarity.]

Polygon: What did you set out to do with Cairn? What was the thing you had to accomplish?

Audrey Leprince: With Cairn , it was really straightforward: We were gonna do a game about climbing a mountain. So it was this lonely ascent of an impossible mountain.

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