Cairn's Deep Water DLC surfaces on 29 October

The Game Bakers has finally put a date on Cairn's delayed expansion. On the Trail: Deep Water, the free DLC for its mountain-climbing survival game, arrives on 29 October and brings a second climber with it. The studio announced the date on 20 September alongside a launch-date trailer.

Three new locations and a stricter mountain

The expansion adds three new locations to the game, which the studio describes as being filled with fresh problems and discoveries. Because those areas are smaller than the base game's Mt Kami, The Game Bakers has added a limit on how much energy you have for a climb: efforts and mistakes tire your climber out, so the gear you pack and the route you pick matter more than they did on the mountain you already know.

The second playable climber is Marco. He is not as tall or as flexible as Aava, the base game's lead, but the studio says he makes up for it with reach, strong arms and a newer climbot model, and that his style may still throw experienced players. A free update lands alongside the DLC with a Free Roam mode, letting you return to Kami as either climber and explore every path the mountain has to offer.

A date that moved

The DLC was originally pencilled in for 13 August in a studio post dated 6 June, so the autumn date is a slip of roughly eleven weeks rather than a surprise. Cairn itself launched on 29 January for PC and is listed at £19.99 on Steam, which makes a free expansion a different sort of proposition from the usual post-launch plan.

Our opinion

There is a safe version of this DLC and this is not it. Three new areas lifted straight from Mt Kami with a new coat of paint would have kept everyone happy and cost the studio nothing; instead The Game Bakers has bolted an energy budget onto the one game in its catalogue that runs on unhurried rhythm. That is a genuine risk. Climbing games live or die on the pleasure of a clean line, and a stamina meter is the fastest way to turn that pleasure into admin - every fall becomes a resource decision rather than a lesson. Set against that, the eleven-week slip from an August date is worth more respect than most delays get: the studio went quiet, moved the date, and shipped the work to a week when the game's own audience is still climbing rather than to a crowded October full of sequels. Free content for a seven-month-old £19.99 game is also the cheapest good argument for keeping it installed, and Free Roam quietly answers the complaint that the mountain runs out. It is the energy limit that decides this one. If it reads as tension, Deep Water is the best thing to happen to Cairn since launch; if it reads as nagging, players will climb the three new areas once and go back to free climbing.