Horses (video game)

Horses is a first-person narrative horror video game. Completion of some actions are interspersed with live-action cutscenes depicting the action players are undertaking, and some events are overlaid on the screen to draw the attention of players to them. Dialogue with characters is presented via an intertitle after the character speaks. == Plot ==

The player is Anselmo, a young man who is sent to spend two weeks working on a farm. He is immediately introduced to the farmer and his "horses", who are humans kept naked except for masks, fed on hay and water, "ridden" on the shoulders, raced, and forced to pull a plow. Anselmo soon learns that the farmer's dog, Fido, is also a human in a mask and serves as a guard and supervisor. As the farmer takes Anselmo into his trust, he learns that the farmer captures people caught engaging in sexual activity in the nearby woods, injects them with horse fluids, and brainwashes them into servitude. He is aided by a corrupt businessman, a preacher, and a vet, who visit the farm to abuse the "horses" in different ways. "Horses" who have sex with each other are punished by beating and castration, while the farmer wears a large locked chastity belt at all times. On one of several occasions, the farmer gets drunk and puts on his own horse mask, then has a female "horse" raped by Fido while the farmer watches and attempts to masturbate. Anselmo befriends a female "horse" named Linda, who informs him that she is in contact with Fiero, a male "horse" who previously escaped and plans to free all the "horses". Fiero and Linda's plan fails, resulting in the death of Fido, Fiero being nailed to a stake to die, and Linda being recaptured for torture and brainwashing. Anselmo locates Linda and releases her, but is caught by the farmer. The farmer prepares to inject Anselmo to turn him into the next Fido, but Linda ambushes him, and together she and Anselmo tie the farmer down and inject him with horse fluids. The game ends with the "horses" holding a funeral for Fiero, with Linda giving Fiero's mask to Anselmo, who leads the "horses" off the farm to freedom. == Development and release ==

Horses was conceived by Andrea Lucco Borlera, a film graduate at the Roma Tre University, developing the game's concept and directing the live action sequences. Borlera stated the design and aesthetic of the game was inspired by surrealist filmmakers Luis Buñuel and Jan Švankmajer, and the work of filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos. Borlera also cited childhood experiences of fear of horses and their handlers on his grandfather's farm as a source for the game's direction. After finding difficulty in pitching the game to studios, Borlera stated the partnership arose from a chance meeting with Riva. The game experienced delays from its intended 2024 release date due to then-undisclosed reasons, with developers announcing the final release date and trailer for the game in 2025. Storefront bans In November 2025, immediately prior to the game's release date, Santa Ragione announced that they were unable to release Horses on Steam as Valve Corporation had made a final decision to not permit the game on the platform due to it breaching the platform's content guidelines. Following this announcement, Epic Games Store sent an email to Santa Ragione stating that they had resubmitted the International Age Rating Coalition questionnaire for Horses and received results suggesting an Adults Only 18+ (AO) rating, and that they would therefore not sell the game as it was against their policy to carry AO-rated games. Distributor GOG issued a statement that it would retain the game on its platform, stating that it was "proud" to host it as "players should be able to choose the experiences that speak to them". GOG's managing director Maciej Gołębiewski said of their decision, "We believe in creative freedom, because once a company, through their own terms of service, decides what's good and what's not good - what's acceptable; what can be sold and what cannot be sold - it's a slippery slope from that point onward." The studio stated that Steam provided an automated response following an initial review that the game would not be distributed as it, in Valve's words, "appears, in our judgment, to depict sexual conduct involving a minor". The studio characterized the judgment as "vague and unfounded" and that Steam did not provide further feedback on scenes or elements that triggered the ban. They speculated that the decision stemmed from reviewers seeing a scene in a dialogue sequence depicting a child being carried on the shoulders of a naked adult woman, which they stated was "not sexual in any way". This character was later changed to an adult during development. As a result of the ban, Santa Ragione stated that whilst the game would receive post-launch support, the studio may need to wind down its operations, as the inability to secure an external partnership with a publisher due to the ban led to an "unsustainable financial situation". The announcement prompted commentary on the role of game distribution platforms in approving or rejecting works with adult content. Several critics discussed that moderation of the game raised issues around artistic freedom of expression, Citing discourse relating to Steam's content moderation of adult games required by payment processors following activism by Collective Shout, Nathan Grayson of Aftermath stated that these decisions reflected censorship and would "reverberate through the industry" and argued platforms should not decide "what does and does not constitute commercially viable art". == Reception ==

Pre-release reception Pre-release demo coverage for Horses praised the game's provocative and experimental concept. Edge praised the game's experimental qualities for keeping the game fresh and enhancing the "disquieting mood", highlighting the game's aesthetic choices such as its use of close-up shots, which "magnifies deformities and accentuates the grotesqueness of the human faces, turning a simple mealtime conversation into a paranoid fever dream". Robert Purchese of Eurogamer stated that the game was "decidedly quieter" than Santa Ragione's previous works, noting its "minimal dialogue" and "eerily rudimentary construction". Critics generally praised Horses for its aesthetic and experimental qualities, Alyssa Mercante of The Guardian said the game's controversy was "superfluous" and the game was "by no means shocking or radical", citing its lack of explicit gore or violence, and self-censorship of nudity by using pixelization. Chris Person of Aftermath opined that Horses was "goofy, cartoonish, and self-censored", cited numerous other video games which he felt to be more explicit in terms of sexual and violent themes, and criticized both Valve and Epic, calling their decision to ban the game "embarrassing". Several reviewers thought that the impact of the themes in Horses was limited by its narrative and gameplay execution, Farokhmanesh wrote that Horses lacked "any sort of moral resolution", leaving the game's ideas "half-baked". Riva stated the commercial performance of the game on these platforms would assist the studio to partially recoup most of the loans used to fund the game, although it would likely not allow the studio to produce new games. By December 2025, the game had sold over 18,000 copies and $65,000 in net revenue, which were sufficient for Santa Ragione to repay its debts, although still insufficient for the studio to plan any future development. Kotaku speculated that the game's visibility may have been aided by the storefront bans, and whilst Riva noted the publicity had helped sales, == References ==