Video Games Weekly: Climbing games are so hot right now

Welcome to Video Games Weekly on Engadget. Expect a new story every Monday or Tuesday, broken into two parts. The first is a space for short essays and ramblings about video game trends and related topics from me, Jess Conditt, a reporter who's covered the industry for more than 13 years. The second contains the video game stories from the past week that you need to know about, including some headlines from outside of Engadget.

Please enjoy — and I'll see you next week.

The climbing genre is not a monolith — that is to say, there’s plenty of variation in the realm of mountaineering games, from mechanically driven cliff-scaling sims to silly multiplayer survival experiences, but they tend to share the same premise: Reach the peak. You’re miles from civilization, with no vehicles and a limited backpack of equipment, and directly in front of you, there’s a mountain. Ascend.

All you have is your body and mental fortitude against an overwhelming physical challenge, and your step-by-step journey is the story. There’s an obvious symbolism to these games, offering a cliff face as the physical manifestation of impossibility, hopelessness, oppression or fear, alongside a surface-level message about never giving up, trying again and generally hanging in there. Cat poster vibes, but an ever-relevant and poignant lesson nonetheless.

Today, though — particularly after spending time playing the Cairn and Baby Steps demos, and watching PEAK streams — I want to focus on the other half of the climbing-game equation. The part where you fall, over and over and over again. Your grip slips, your leg doesn’t bend that way, your energy depletes, and your body tumbles down the mountain, bouncing off boulders and crashing into trees, leaving you bloody and broken and right back where you started. Or, at the very least, staining your onesie with mud. 

I’m learning to appreciate these moments. In mountaineering games, falling tends to generate the most powerful reaction in players, whether that’s immediate laughter (PEAK) or grim frustration (Cairn), and this is an admirable quality. It’s easy to argue that the fall is more important than the climb, because without the lush bed of emotion generated by the constant threat of slipping and tumbling and restarting, reaching the peak wouldn’t feel that special at all. There’s context in the fall, and with that, there comes a sliver of peace.

When you spend all your time climbing, it’s easy to forget that falling is actually the most natural thing you can do. Next time you’re on your way down, try to make peace with the fall.

OK — we’ve gone from motivational cat posters to new-age cult speak, so I’ll get to the point. There are a notable number of mountain-based games in the zeitgeist at the moment and I just wanted to shout them out because they’re all pretty incredible in their own ways.

Cairn is a climbing simulator, endurance test and survival game in one gorgeous package, complete with music by Furi composer The Toxic Avenger, French artist ">Gildaa, and Martin Stig Andersen, who did the soundtracks for Control, LIMBO and INSIDE. Climb absolutely anywhere, manage your inventory by shaking your backpack, bandage your wounds, forage for food and sleep under the stars. Cairn comes from Furi studio The Game Bakers and it’s due out on November 5 for PlayStation 5 and Steam; the demo is available on both platforms now.

Baby Steps is a different kind of mountain-scaling game, and one could argue that it doesn’t even belong in the same category as something like Cairn, but I believe you’ll find that it does. Baby Steps adheres to the established premise of the climbing genre — reach the peak — and it features a distant mountaintop as the main waypoint for Nate, a lost and lonely man in a gray onesie. Nate is essentially a dude-sized baby learning how to walk, and creators Maxi Boch, Gabe Cuzzillo and Bennett Foddy are infusing his journey with the appropriate amount of hilarity and mechanical intrigue. Baby Steps is published by Devolver Digital and it’s heading to PC and PS5 on September 23, a date that was recently pushed back to avoid the curse of Hollow Knight: Silksong. (More on that below).

PEAK is the thing all the cool kids are playing this summer, and as a fadingly hip not-kid who prefers solo games and familiar FPSes, I can attest it’s entertaining to watch and looks like a lot of fun to play. PEAK is a co-op climbing game with simple 3D models and deceptively challenging mountains to summit, each with four biomes. The map updates each day so there’s a steady stream of fresh climbing content, and the proximity voice chat works exceptionally well. I particularly like that players get to live on as little ghosts after they die. PEAK comes from indie studio Team PEAK and it’s on Steam for $8.

And why not, I’ll shout out some other modern, but not as recent, mountain-based favorites of mine: Jusant, Celeste, GIRP and Journey are all pretty spectacular.

Enjoy the climb — and the fall.

The news

A selection of indie and AA games I’m looking forward to that aren’t Silksong

Baby Steps is the latest game to change its release date in order to get out of the way of Hollow Knight: Silksong, which is coming out on September 4. Team Cherry dropped the release date in a trailer on August 21 and since then, at least eight indie studios have delayed their own games to avoid the Silksong window. It’s lovely to see Silksong have its day in the sun, but personally, I’m more interested in playing Baby Steps in full.

With that said, here’s a sampling of indie and AA games I’m anticipating that aren’t Silksong, in no particular order and right off the top of my head:

• Bye Sweet Carole (October 9, 2025)

• Keeper (October 17, 2025)

• Reanimal (TBA)

• Little Nightmares III (October 9, 2025)

• Please, Watch the Artwork (2025)

• Building Relationships (2025)

• Mixtape (2025)

• Crisol: Theater of Idols (2025)

• UNBEATABLE (November 6, 2025)

• Big Walk (2026)

• Grave Seasons (2026)

• Petal Runner (2026)

• Hades 2 (live in early access, 1.0 imminent)

• Possessor(s) (2025)

• Neverway (2026)

• Denshattack! (2026)

• Absolum (October 9, 2025)

• Skate Story (2025)

• Cronos: The New Dawn (September 5, 2025)

• Lumines Arise (November 11, 2025)

• Relooted (TBA)

• Escape Academy 2: Back 2 School (2026)

• Blighted (2026)

And obviously, Baby Steps (September 23, 2025) and Cairn (November 5, 2025).

A date for skate.

Electronic Arts has revived the Skate series after 15 years, and the (very youthfully styled) skate. is primed to hit early access on September 16 across PlayStation 4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S and PC. The new skate. is a shift for the series: It’s a free, online, open-world experience with microtransactions (but nothing in the pay-to-win realm, according to EA). The early access version will be free, too, of course.

The scariest part of Silent Hill f might be its mental health awareness

You’ll find this one alongside Resident Evil Requiem and Pragmata in my AAA-inclusive list of games I’m most looking forward to, and En