About

Horses is a surrealist horror video game developed and published by Santa Ragione Game Studio in collaboration with filmmaker Andrea Lucco Borlera. The game puts players in the role of a farmhand tending to a farm filled with enslaved people dressed as horses. In November 2025, leading up to the game's December 2nd, 2025, release date, it was reported that Steam refused to distribute the game on its storefront. Later that month, the Epic Games Store reportedly also banned the game's release, with Itch.io and GOG supporting the game. A day after its release, the Humble Store then banned the game. The bans inspired notable discourse online about video game and art censorship. Horses was generally well-received following its release.

History

On November 25th, 2025, Santa Ragione Game Studio released the trailer for their surrealist horror video game Horses on YouTube,^[1] garnering over 100,000 views in a week. The game, made in collaboration with Italian filmmaker and designer Andrea Lucco Borlera, is set at a farm where enslaved people are made to dress and act like horses. Highlights of the trailer include scenes of the player branding a human horse, rolling a dead human horse away in a wheelbarrow and riding a human horse.

Ban From the Steam Store

On November 25th, 2025, the day of the release of the Horses trailer, IGN^[2] reported that Horses had been banned from distribution on the Steam Store, which reportedly left Santa Ragione Game Studio at "high risk of closure." A representative for Steam released a statement about the decision to ban the game to GamesIndustry.biz,^[3] writing:

We reviewed the game back in 2023. At that time, the developer indicated with their release date in Steamworks that they planned to release a few months later. Based on content in the store page, we told the developer we would need to review the build itself. This happens sometimes if content on the store page causes concern that the game itself might not fall within our guidelines. After our team played through the build and reviewed the content, we gave the developer feedback about why we couldn’t ship the game on Steam, consistent with our onboarding rules and guidelines. A short while later the developer asked us to reconsider the review, and our internal content review team discussed that extensively and communicated to the developer our final decision that we were not going to ship the game on Steam.

Release

On December 2nd, 2025, Horses was released for sale on Itch.io,^[4] GOG^[5] and Humble, the latter of which has since removed the game.

Ban From Epic Games Store, Humble Store

On December 2nd, 2025, IGN^[6] reported that Horses had been banned from sale on the Epic Games Store. The article was updated on December 3rd to announce that the Humble Store, which is owned by IGN Entertainment, had also decided to remove the game from its storefront.

Online Presence

Ban Discourse

The widespread bans on Horses in late 2025 inspired many reactions and notable discourse online about game censorship.

On November 25th, 2025, following Steam's ban of the game, X^[7] user @oliver_drk shared the Horses trailer, writing, "I see why Steam refused approval. 💀," garnering over 11,000 likes in a week.

On November 26th, X^[8] user @SunnyIsOnlineYT quoted the post with a retaliatory meme, mockingly writing, "'I see why steam refused approval' come on😭," garnering over 12,000 likes in a week.

That same day, Aftermath^[9] published an article criticizing the ban titled, "Steam Is For Products, Not Art." In the article, they share excerpts from Santa Ragione Game Studios' FAQ on the ban, including a statement on Steam and their approach to art as a whole, writing:

"Steam publicly downplays human curation in favor of algorithmic sales optimization, yet intervenes with censorship when a game’s artistic vision does not align with what the platform owners considers acceptable art. Steam’s behavior passively shapes which titles developers feel safe creating, pushing preemptive censorship […] Mature works with comparable or stronger themes routinely appear on mainstream streaming platforms such as Netflix and Amazon Prime Video, where controversial directors are an accepted part of the catalog. This double standard suggests Steam does not treat games as art on par with film, and intervenes with censorship when an artistic vision does not align with what the platform owner considers acceptable art.

On November 28th, 2025, YouTuber^[10] Charalanahzard posted a video about the game, titled "why is anyone ok with this," in which she discusses the bans, garnering over 100,000 views in five days.

On December 2nd, X^[11] user @L1nko64 quoted a post about the game's ban from the Epic Games Store, writing, "Two stores dropping this, and the dev never really being clear about the content, is odd […] Someone down the line is being coy here," gaining over 2,100 likes in a day.

Reception

Horses was generally well-received upon release. IGN^[12] awarded the game a score of 7/10, writing, "Horses is an affecting first-person horror game that, despite some repetitive tasks and signposting issues, delivers a harrowing story you won’t forget in a hurry."

Eurogamer^[13] gave Horses a 4/5 star review. Similarly, Slant Magazine^[14] awarded the game a 4/5 star review.

As of December 3rd, 2025, users on Itch.io^[4] gave it nearly five stars based on 16 reviews, while 60 reviews on GOG^[5] gave it a 4.4 out of 5.

Search Interest

External References