How to Get Cairn Ready for Its Free Deep Water DLC on October 29

Cairn's first free expansion, On the Trail: Deep Water, arrives on PC and PS5 on October 29, adding three new climbing areas, a second playable climber and a stricter resource system that changes how The Game Bakers' survival-climbing game is played. The French studio pushed the DLC back once already from an original August 13 target to rework its new mechanics, and the finished version is free to anyone who already owns Cairn. Whether you cleared Mount Kami back at January's launch or are coming to the game fresh for Deep Water, a handful of menu changes are worth sorting out before the update lands.

What Deep Water Actually Changes

The DLC's three new locations are smaller than the main game's Mount Kami but follow the same survival-climbing structure: find a route, place gear, and manage Aava's stamina and resources as you ascend. The Game Bakers describes the new areas as built around the trail of a legendary climber, with fresh climbing problems and discoveries layered into each one. The headline addition is water soloing, a mechanic that lets you climb directly above water without the usual risk of a fatal fall, which opens up route options the base game never allowed. Marco, previously a supporting character, becomes a second playable climber alongside Aava; The Game Bakers describes him as shorter and less flexible than Aava but with a longer reach and a newer climbot model, giving him a distinct climbing feel rather than just a new skin.

Rebinding Controls Before You Start Climbing

Cairn's control scheme is built around a single climb button — Square on PS5, left click on PC — that has Aava grab the nearest wall and automatically select a limb to move. From there, limbs are steered with the left stick or WASD, and Interact, Cancel and Jump Back Down are the inputs worth memorizing first, since they are what let you back out of a bad placement instead of falling. Cairn's full remapping menu covers controller and keyboard alike, and The Game Bakers has said the same options are built to work with most adaptive controllers, so it is worth a look even if you do not plan to change the defaults. If Deep Water's water-soloing sections have you second-guessing a jump, turning on manual limb selection in the control menu trades some automation for precision, letting you choose exactly which hand or foot moves next instead of relying on Cairn's auto-pick.

Picking a Difficulty and Turning On Assist Mode

Cairn offers three difficulty tiers — Explorer, Alpinist and Free Solo — and the route you choose on a climb adjusts the challenge further within whichever tier you pick. Assist Mode is available on Explorer and Alpinist only, and it is built from individual toggles rather than one blanket "easy" switch: Fall Rewind lets you recover from any fall instead of restarting the climb, infinite climbing gear removes the need to manage pitons, chalk and tape, auto-saving checks in whenever you reach solid ground, and a no-survival option strips out hunger, thirst and cold entirely. New Cairn or Deep Water players who just want to see the new areas without the full survival loop can lean on all four; returning climbers who want Deep Water's energy system to actually matter should leave infinite gear and no-survival off and keep Fall Rewind as a safety net instead.

Accessibility Settings Worth Checking First

The Game Bakers has built out a wide accessibility options menu that is worth a pass regardless of your experience with climbing games. Breathing Feedback shows Aava's exertion visually rather than relying on audio cues alone, limb highlighting makes it easier to track where each hand and foot is placed on a crowded wall, and a vibration intensity slider and X/Y axis inversion cover controller comfort. Cairn also avoids color-only prompts, pairing every color cue with animation or iconography so colorblind players are not left guessing. Two smaller toggles are easy to miss but worth turning on for Deep Water specifically: automatic finger taping removes a fiddly manual step that has no bearing on the new water-soloing routes, and the option to skip the piton timing mini-game keeps the focus on route-finding in the new areas rather than on a rhythm check you have already mastered.

Managing Deep Water's Limited Energy Meter

The new areas introduce a limited energy budget on top of Cairn's existing stamina system — The Game Bakers' own announcement describes it plainly as having "a limited amount of energy to complete your climb," with both effort and mistakes draining the meter over the course of an ascent. That makes route planning matter more than it did on Mount Kami, since a few unnecessary moves or a fall you have to recover from can leave you short of energy before you reach the top. Scouting a route with Cairn's camera mode before committing to a wall, and leaning on manual limb selection to avoid wasted or mistimed placements, both help conserve energy for the sections that need it. If you are still learning Deep Water's layouts, dropping to Explorer and toggling on Fall Rewind lets you absorb a mistake without burning through your entire energy bar on a single bad grab.

What to Expect From Free Roam

Deep Water ships alongside a free Free Roam mode that lets you return to Mount Kami as either Aava or Marco and explore the mountain's existing paths without the pressure of a timed ascent. It is a good place to test Marco's longer reach and different climbing feel before taking him into the new Deep Water areas, and a low-stakes way to try out any control or accessibility changes you have made without worrying about losing progress on a real climb. The DLC is confirmed for PC and PS5 at launch, with a Switch 2 version of Cairn still planned for early 2027 and no word yet on whether Deep Water will be included on that platform from day one. The Game Bakers has also described On the Trail as an ongoing series rather than a one-off, so whatever settings and controls you dial in now should carry over to the free expansions still to come.