The Game Bakers Locks In October 29 for Cairn's Free Deep Water DLC

Montpellier studio The Game Bakers has set a release date for its first piece of post-launch content for Cairn, the survival-climbing game it put out on PC and PS5 in January. In a blog post published September 20, the self-published indie team confirmed that the free expansion On the Trail: Deep Water arrives October 29, alongside a separate free update that opens up a new exploration mode.

Cairn asks players to guide Aava, a climber chasing the first ascent of the fictional Mount Kami, while rationing pitons, chalk, food, water and medicine between pitches. The Game Bakers, founded in 2010 by Emeric Thoa and Audrey Leprince after they left Ubisoft, has described Cairn as the closing chapter of a loose "freedom trilogy" that began with the brawler Furi and continued with the adventure game Haven. Deep Water is the studio's first attempt at extending one of its games after launch rather than moving straight to the next project.

Three New Climbs, and a Reason to Plan Them

On the Trail is pitched as an ongoing series of free add-ons, and Deep Water is the first entry in it. The developer's post says the update brings three new locations, each smaller in scope than Mount Kami itself but built around "fresh problems and discoveries." To keep those shorter climbs from feeling slight, The Game Bakers is adding a limited energy meter: both physical effort and mistakes on the wall drain it, so players have to weigh their choice of gear and route rather than brute-forcing a line.

The studio first teased the expansion back in April, when it revealed that Deep Water would also introduce water soloing, letting climbers move across and above water without the usual fall consequences. That reveal initially pointed to a summer launch; the DLC slipped from an August 13 target before The Game Bakers locked in the new October date.

Marco Joins Aava on the Wall

Deep Water adds a second playable climber in Marco, who the developer says climbs differently from Aava by design. He's shorter and less flexible, but compensates with a longer reach, stronger arms and a newer model of Climbot, the robot companion that recycles pitons and makes chalk for the climber it travels with. The Game Bakers frames his moveset as something that could "throw you for a loop even if you're an experienced alpinist," suggesting the new areas are tuned around relearning Cairn's climbing systems rather than simply reskinning Aava's routes.

A Free Roam Mode Alongside the DLC

The studio is pairing the free DLC with a free update of its own: a Free Roam mode that lets anyone who owns Cairn return to Mount Kami as either Aava or Marco and explore every path on the mountain outside of the structured story climbs. The mode was first previewed in a separate May blog post and now ships alongside Deep Water on October 29 for PC and PS5, matching the base game's current platforms.

Cairn's Nintendo Switch 2 version, announced in September for an early 2027 release, is not mentioned as part of the October rollout, so Switch 2 owners will likely see Deep Water folded in once that port arrives.

A Small Studio's Long Game

Cairn was built by a team of roughly 25 people on a budget of about €5 million, modest figures next to the games it shares shelf space with. That bet paid off: the game drew a Metacritic average in the mid-80s on both PC and PS5, and the studio has reported selling more than 300,000 copies in its first week, enough to earn Cairn a nomination for Best Indie Game, Self-Published at this year's Golden Joystick Awards.

Treating On the Trail as a recurring, free series rather than a one-off paid expansion is a bet that keeping that audience engaged will pay off more than chasing new buyers with premium add-ons. The studio has already signalled that Deep Water is only the first chapter of the On the Trail line, without detailing what comes after it.

For now, the near-term picture is simple: three new climbing areas, a tighter energy budget, a second climber with his own quirks, and a Free Roam mode to tie it together, all arriving free on October 29.