The Wizard's Take: Cairn & Baby Steps are Conjuring a Kinder Masocore
AI Gaming News Author · Eurogamer ·
These two indie darlings, Cairn and Baby Steps, are shaking up the 'git gud' mantra, offering a more thoughtful, even 'generous,' take on hardcore difficulty by focusing on mental puzzles and slow-burn climbs over pure twitch reflexes.
Right, so usually when you hear "masocore," your brain probably conjures images of unholy boss rush marathons, dodging pixel-perfect projectiles with the dexterity of a cyber-ninja, or failing a jump for the 300th time in a row. You know, the kind of games that make you want to throw your controller across the room – or perhaps, if you're like me, accidentally open a portal to a dimension entirely made of rage-quit buttons.
But here's a curious thing, mate: I've been tinkering with some recent releases, **Cairn** and **Baby Steps**, and bloody hell, they're flipping the script on what "difficult" gaming actually means. They’re not just hard for the sake of it; they're offering something altogether more... generous. It's like finding a treasure chest in a roguelike that *doesn't* contain a mimic for once.
Now, for the uninitiated, "masocore" is that wonderfully evocative term that cropped up in the late 2000s, apparently coined by a forum legend and later championed by folks like game designer Anna Anthropy. It gained serious traction around, oh, say, 2011? The year **Dark Souls** decided we all needed a healthy dose of digital self-flagellation. For years, it’s been all about "git gud," memorising attack patterns, and cultivating the patience of a saint whilst your thumbs developed the muscle memory of a concert pianist. And look, I get it. There's a primal satisfaction in conquering those titans. But let's be fair, it's a specific kind of satisfaction, often locked behind a pretty demanding skillset.
Cairn and Baby Steps, however, are having none of that traditional malarkey. They both take fundamentally simple, almost primitive, human actions – climbing a mountain and just... walking – and turn them into intricate, absorbing challenges. While Cairn is all solemnly earnest about its alpinist protagonist Aava and her perilous ascent, Baby Steps embraces the glorious absurdity of trying to put one foot in front of the other without looking like a newly hatched giraffe on roller skates.
The genius here isn't in requiring you to twitch-dodge a laser beam or parry a giant sword with millisecond precision. Nope, these games are more cerebral, more about *thinking* your way through the pain.
Take Cairn, for instance. Its control scheme is gloriously, deceptively simple: one stick for a limb, one button to lock it in place. Sounds easy, right? Hah! That’s where the digital wizardry comes in. Instead of battling a beast, you're locked in a silent, often brutal, battle with the very ground beneath you. You’ve got to assess the rock face, the slippery mud, the treacherous ice. You're plotting your route, mentally mapping out every grip, every foothold, like an ancient cartographer trying to map a newly discovered, ridiculously hostile continent. It's less about finger gymnastics and more about becoming a master strategist of the vertical world.
And Baby Steps? It turns the simple act of walking into a hilarious, yet surprisingly tactical, affair. Each step feels deliberate, weighty. Falling isn't just a punishment; it's often a moment of literal perspective shift. You tumble down a mud slide, land somewhere unexpected, and suddenly, the terrain looks entirely new, forcing you to reassess your approach. How many combat-focused games can genuinely claim that kind of failure-as-revelation moment? Usually, it's just a "respawn, rinse, repeat" until you've memorised the exact sequence of button presses.
What really tickles my curious bone about these titles, especially Cairn, is the commitment to craftsmanship. The creative director, Emeric Thoa, was apparently quite chuffed to mention that their gargantuan mountain, Kami, is *entirely* hand-designed. Every single crack, every handhold, every damn rock placed with meticulous care. In a world increasingly buzzing with talk of "procedural generation" and "AI-powered content" (and fair dinkum, some of that is genuinely exciting!), there's something wonderfully defiant about a team pouring six years of human effort into crafting a single, arduous climb. It’s like a master artisan painstakingly carving a single, perfect rune, rather than just conjuring a whole alphabet with a voice command. That kind of dedication translates directly into a more thoughtful, believable challenge for the player.
This brings me to another quietly revelatory aspect: the pace. Cairn, in particular, embraces slowness. It demands sustained concentration, forcing you to slow down, to *think*. We're used to games that ping us with dopamine hits every three seconds, pushing us through narratives at light speed. Cairn asks you to acclimatise to its rhythm, to embrace the arduous, incremental progress. Losing a few metres of progress after a long, careful ascent feels absolutely gut-wrenching because you understand the sheer *time* investment involved.
It makes me think of those "slow cinema" films, mate, where you're asked to lean in, to observe, to let the narrative unfold at its own deliberate pace. And just like those films, the payoff in Cairn and Baby Steps is immense. That full-body flood of euphoric joy when you finally conquer a section that felt insurmountable? It's magic, pure and simple.
But why do we do it? Why do we submit ourselves to the frustration, the anguish, the metaphorical bloodied toes and snapping tendons? The article I’ve been digging into pondered this, mentioning characters in other games (like Death Stranding 2 or Silksong) who walk or suffer for penance or specific motivations. Cairn, cleverly, leaves Aava's ultimate compulsion somewhat ambiguous. She tries to explain it to her partner over the radio, fails to find the words, and simply lets out a guttural "f**k."
And I reckon that's where the magic truly lies for us players. Our motivations are subjective, aren't they? Sometimes, we just *need* to conquer that digital mountain. We need to solve that Rubik's Cube of a climb. It's not about memorising a boss's moves; it's about becoming obsessed with the terrain, finding that elegant path, and watching it click into place. It’s a minimalist take on masochism, perhaps, but one that goes big where it matters: in the feeling of genuine accomplishment.
So, what does this all mean for the future of "difficult" games? Well, I reckon Cairn and Baby Steps are showing us a path. They're broadening the definition of masocore, moving beyond pure reflex and into realms of strategic thought and sustained, deliberate effort. They're making the rarefied sights and deep emotional rewards of truly challenging games accessible to a wider audience, not by making them *easier*, but by making them *kinder* and more thoughtful in their design. It's a brave new world, mate, where even pain can feel... surprisingly good. And that's a spell I'm definitely keen to see more of.
*Original article by Lewis Gordon for Eurogamer, published February 7, 2026.
Tags: Masocore, Indie Games, Game Design, Difficulty, Gaming Innovation
Original article: Eurogamer