Falling is the point: why climbing games like Cairn, Baby Steps, and PEAK are having a moment
- Aug 30, 2025
- 2 min read
Updated: Aug 30, 2025
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Climbing games aren’t just about summits—they’re about slips, scrapes, and the weird peace that comes from tumbling back to the start and choosing to go again. The genre ranges from brutal, sim-like cliff faces to goofy co-op scrambles, but they all share one delicious premise: reach the peak, or at least learn something trying. That’s why this moment feels special; the climb is good, but the fall is doing the heavy lifting.
Take Cairn, the “survival climber” from the Furi studio, which treats every hold like a boss fight and every checkpoint like a hard-won campsite hammered into the rock. It’s due November 5 on PS5 and PC, with a demo already letting palms sweat across fresh granite. Between handcrafted routes and stamina mind-games, it’s less traversal, more test of nerve.
Then there’s Baby Steps, a physics-forward pilgrimage starring a man in a gray onesie relearning how to walk, stumbling toward a far-off peak like a toddler with a dream. It’s now slated for September 23 on PC and PS5, nudged a bit to dodge the release shockwaves of other blockbusters—and honestly, that date feels like a fitting wink for a game about delayed gratification…
