Cairn is the new mountaineering adventure game from The Game Bakers, the indie developers behind Furi and Haven. There are a lot of trophies to unlock on the slow climb to the platinum, so we are here with our 100% Trophy Guide to help you ascend to the summit and conquer Mount Kami!
Check out our Cairn Review for our full thoughts on the game.
Spoiler Warning: This article and our guides for Cairn contain some narrative spoilers for the game. You have been warned!
Overview
- Completion Difficulty: 2/10
- Estimated Completion Time: 15 hours
- Missable Achievements: 16
Cairn only allows one save file per climb. As long as you’re playing in Explorer or Alpinist, you can reload a previous save using the Display Route function and clicking on the cairn icons. However, this does mean that you will need to continue the climb from where you left off. Otherwise, they are technically missable.
Missable trophies will be highlighted.
- Playthroughs Required: 1
For the Home trophy, you’ll have the option to stop the climb and go back home. This will trigger the end credits and earn you this trophy. Afterwards, reload and choose to continue the climb instead.
- Difficulty-Based Achievements: None
For the Don’t stop me now trophy, if playing on Explorer difficulty, do not use the rewind function. This voids the trophy.
- Unobtainable/Glitched Achievement: None
| Name | Type | Description | Solution |
| Free | Platinum | Unlock all trophies | Obtain all trophies |
| Mandatory Warm-up | Bronze | Complete training on Tenzen | Main Story |
| Those who come back down | Bronze | Meet a broken climbot | Main Story |
| Moment of cool | Bronze | Take a break at the waterfall | Main Story |
| Interloper on the wall | Bronze | Meet Marco | Main Story |
| Everything else disappears | Bronze | Witness an aurora borealis | Main Story |
| One hell of a night | Bronze | Wake up on the mountain in top shape | Main Story |
| Neither a success, nor a failure | Bronze | Meet Damas Al Fatri | Main Story |
| Upstream | Bronze | Survive the avalanche | Main Story |
| Not even a scratch | Bronze | Survive a 15-meter fall | Just as described, just don’t make it too high. |
| Just a bit too late | Bronze | Fall while planting a piton | When Aava’s limbs are close to giving out, attempt to place a piton. Make sure to attempt this on “grey” or ice surfaces. It won’t work on brown, denser surfaces. |
| Don’t stop me now | Bronze | Climb 30 meters without using a piton | This needs to be done without landing and needs to be 30meters of continuous climbing. If playing on Explorer difficulty, |
| Ain’t scared | Bronze | Jump from the ground and latch onto the wall | R2 to start a short sprint, then X to jump. If done with a decent distance in between, Aava will automatically latch onto the wall to the wall. |
| Honest heist | Bronze | Collect wild honey from the wall | Obtaining honey from a wall (not from the hidden beekeeper’s cave) is typically a challenge. This can be made easier with chalk for the Extra Grip buff, and a Grip buff from foods or supplements |
| Leave no trace | Bronze | Compost 10 trash items | Keep Kami clean and maintain your chalk supply by using Climbot to compost any trash you find or create |
| Kami sashimi | Bronze | Catch a fish | Easily done with most bodies of water. The first one that is impossible to miss is after the waterfall cutscene |
| Lick responsibly | Bronze | Become woozy from licking a frog | See our guide here |
| Return to Source | Bronze | Catch a weird salamander | See our guide here |
| Luxurious grip | Bronze | Compost coins | During the climbing tutorial at the beginning of the game, you’ll see a vending machine located in the corner of the room. There is a coin there. Compost it in your backpack menu |
| All that glitters | Bronze | Find glow-in-the-dark gloves | See our guide here |
| Wind whispherer | Bronze | Find the windmill | See our guide here |
| Herbalist | Bronze | Cool the ultimate infusion | See our guide here |
| Master chocolatier | Bronze | Cook up an Easter egg | Mix a chocolate bar with liquid, most likely some water. Then cook it with eggs, creating a chocolate egg |
| Red Rope Club | Bronze | Make an alcoholic cocktail | Create a mixed alcoholic beverage. Combining moonshine and chocolate did the trick for us |
| Doped up | Bronze | Combine the effects of burst, grip, extra grip, focus, and grit in one go | Use chalk for extra grip. Any sugary drink or food will add a burst buff (chocolate, sugar, honey, maple syrup, etc). The Ultimate infusion will give you grip, focus, and grit buffs simultaneously, but can also be attained from consuming other foods that provide them. |
| *No thanks | Bronze | Interrupt Marco’s rambling | After camping out with Marco for the first time, he’ll follow you around for a bit, rambling. You’ll have the opportunity to interrupt him through a prompt. |
| Bird’s eye | Bronze | Check your route from the remote view mode | You’ll be using this often. Press L1 then Triangle to “Display Route” |
| *Light up the sky | Bronze | Shoot fireworks | See our guide here |
| *Heartbeat | Bronze | Find an Edelweiss | See our guide here |
| End of the Rope | Bronze | Reach the furthest extent of the rope | Place your piton and rappel, or walk away from it until it runs out |
| Siesta | Bronze | Enjoy a nice outdoor nap | Press L2 to access your secondary action menu. Then X to rest while outdoors. |
| Picture for Chris | Bronze | Use the Photo Mode | Take a photo. Take LOTS! |
| Close call | Bronze | Survive a near-deadly fall | Similar to falling from 15 meters, this time, just fall more based on your remaining health |
| Lactic acid | Bronze | Recover stamina by shaking your arm over 50 times | Pressing Triangle during a climb allows you to recover your stamina up to three times until you’re able to rest. Do this until you’ve done it for a total of 50 times. |
| Nurse | Bronze | Tape your fingers 20 times | Maintain your fingers while resting inside your bivouac or while standing. Each finger takes up 1 tape. You should earn this naturally |
| Engineer | Bronze | Craft 15 pitons from scraps | New pitons can be made using 2 piton scraps. It’s possible to miss this if you’re too good at placing your pitons while climbing or if you rely too much on the 3 special pitons that don’t break. You’ll also find scraps during play |
| *I did it! | Bronze | Reach mini-Kami summit | See our guide here |
| Bag maniac | Bronze | Did you really think you could keep your bag tidy? | Use R2 while in your backpack and attempt to create one “line” of items by grabbing them manually. |
| *Spotted! | Bronze | Find Marco with the binoculars | See our guide here |
| Hungry like a wolf | Bronze | Loot food from a corpse | This is gained naturally through play |
| *Meteorologist | Bronze | Assemble the 3 doll pieces | See our guide here |
| Your story | Bronze | Watch your completed ascent | After rolling the credits, access your completed save and press Square to see your completed route. Follow along your climb until you’ve reached the summit |
| *Love birds | Bronze | Let loose Rody and Johanna’s kite | See our guide here |
| *In Memoriam | Bronze | Place the origami in the shelter | See our guide here |
| Leap of faith | Bronze | Run and jump into the void while on the rope | Place a piton near an edge and perform a Run & Jump into an out of bounds part of the mountain |
| *Serious Training | Silver | Open the box in the gym room | Complete all 8 courses and open the chest before climbing out of the training area |
| *Grizzly woman | Silver | Survive the bear | See our guide here |
| *The Child | Silver | Find the first guardian’s troglodyte piton | See our guide here |
| *The Ancient | Silver | Find the second guardian’s troglodyte piton | See our guide here |
| *The Secret | Silver | Find the third guardian’s troglodyte piton | See our guide here |
| *Aava Porter Bridges | Silver | Deliver Rody’s letter to the shepherdess | See our guide here |
| *One day, I’ll be rich! | Silver | Bring all crystal shards to the crystal-cutter | See our guide here |
| *Home | Silver | Go back down with Marco | Near the end of the game, after meeting up with Marco for the last time, choose to go back home with him. After the credits roll, you’ll have the chance to make this choice again, continuing the climb. If you chose to complete the climb and managed to succeed and roll credits, you will need to play through the game again to make this trophy |
| Part of a whole | Gold | Reach Kami’s summit | Complete the game |
There is a healthy spread of trophies for hunters to enjoy, rewarding player curiosity and exploration as well as the use of the game’s systems and progression. Nothing is too challenging, and at most demands patience, so you should have the glorious platinum trophy faster than you can say Kilamanjaro!
That was our 100% Trophy Guide for Cairn! We hope it was helpful, and be sure to check back here at the GSC for more guides.
How are you finding your time with Cairn? Got any helpful tips you’d like to share? Let us know in the comments below, and join the Gamer Social Club Discord to chat with others about your favourite games, play in community game nights, take part in giveaways, and more!
