The most controversial video game of recent years is not your average horror game, as the creators of Saturnalia and Mediterranea Inferno take no prisoners.
It is a long time since the idea of banning a video game was a legitimate concern. Even back in the 90s and early 2000s it wasn’t common, with Carmageddon, The Punisher, and Manhunt 2 being the only notable examples unique to the UK. On a global scale the biggest moral panics have been those connected with Mortal Kombat and the Black Coffee furore surrounding GTA: San Andreas, but that was more a question of censorship than being unavailable for sale.
All those examples are controversial because of violence and sexual content, although the latter almost always on a scale that is positively chaste compared to most adult-orientated movies and TV shows. There’s an ongoing problem with hentai content on online stores but in general it’s now rare for a game to be censored or banned in the West.
You could argue that speaks poorly of developers trying to push boundaries but the reward for Italian developer Santa Ragione attempting to do so, is for Horses to be effectively banned on Steam and Epic Games Store. That’s left the studio in dire financial peril, as the PC-only game is now only available from a handful of smaller online stores.
To be fair to Steam (it’s not clear exactly what happened with Epic Games Store but it was also briefly banned by Humble Bundle) Santa Ragione bungled the submission process for the game, where an early version was submitted that included a child in a non-sexual scene with a naked woman. Or at least they think that’s what the problem was, since apparently Steam hasn’t explained their reasoning in detail.
That scene is not in the final game, but, as a matter of policy, Steam doesn’t allow second chances and so Santa Ragione finds itself in its current predicament, with lots of free publicity but only very limited ways to take advantage of it (it’s hyper unlikely that Sony, Microsoft, or Nintendo would allow the game to be released on consoles).
There is nothing sexual in the game involving children but that doesn’t mean the game isn’t deeply disturbing, as well as being thought provoking and darkly comical. It deals with issues such as suicide and psychological abuse and makes the potential for upset clear, in a lengthy warning screen before you start.
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Video games often borrow imagery and concepts from movies (it’s weird how often The Descent comes up) but we have to say we never expected to be comparing one to the infamous Italian film Salò – which is not something we encourage anyone to read about, let alone watch.
Compared to that, Horses is positively tame but describing what the game is about is difficult, not least because it’s barely more than two hours long, and so there’s a real danger of spoiling the whole thing.
However, the set-up is that you’re a student taking on a summer job at a farm, whose many horrors are revealed to you over the course of a two week stay – including, but not limited to, the fact that the horses, and other animals, are naked men and women wearing unremovable masks. Although their genitals are pixelated out, which is something the developer already did and not part of the current controversy.
Horses is a horror game but one that reverses the standard template so that the most horrifying elements are not what might be done to you but what you might do to others. The game features moral choices where you must decide whether to do what you’re told or risk your own freedom – although in truth the game’s plot progression is very linear.
At first, you’re not asked to do anything more unusual than chop some wood or clean the stables, but in doing so you learn more about the depravities of the farmer and how the ‘animals’ are treated. Although you soon realise that it’s not just him and that the whole village is in on it.
The player character, Anselmo, has a troubled backstory, which is explored mostly at night, via predictably troubled dreams that feature some of the game’s most shocking imagery. Although we don’t want to overstate things. Horses is weird and unnerving, and by video game standards very explicit, but it’s not doing anything for the sake of titillation.
Its metaphorical exploration of societal oppression is painfully blunt but that means there’s no danger of anyone not getting the point that is being made, especially as your complicity in the workings of the farm are integral to the experience – in a way that wouldn’t be possible if you tried to tell the same story in any other medium.
In terms of presentation, everything in the game is creepy and upsetting, from the weird, low-tech animation of the human characters to the live action footage that veers from mundane farming imagery to things you’re not going to forget in a hurry, no matter how hard you try. There’s no voice-acting, or any real sound or music at all, with the game instead presented like a black and white silent film, with the sound of a projector constantly whirling in the background.
Horses is a laudably daring piece of art and given the fact that it’s virtually being given away, by those few stores that will sell it, the only question is whether you want to subject yourself to such upsetting subject matter. Although its signposting is terrible, with lots of unnecessary difficulties in finding interactive objects and several instances where the game provides no clue as to what you have to do next to progress.
In strict gameplay terms it’s really not very good but that’s not the point. The focus in Horses is on its storytelling and skin-crawling unpleasantness. It has about as much in common with something like Resident Evil as Kirby Air Riders does, but Horses is a true horror experience and it deserves to be experienced by anyone that is intrigued enough to try it.
Horses review summary
In Short: An impressively daring horror experience that pushes the boundaries of what most people would expect from a video game, in terms of subject matter and imagery.
Pros: Intentionally disturbing from the first moment, with a surreal mix of purposefully low-tech visuals and live action footage. Horror with purpose, even if the message is subtle as a brick.
Cons: The more traditional gameplay elements are pretty weak, with poor signposting and unclear objectives.
Score: 7/10
Formats: PC
Price: £3.74 (Humble Bundle) / £3.99 (GOG.com) / $4.99 (itch.io)
Publisher: Santa Ragione
Developer: Santa Ragione
Release Date: 2nd December 2025
Age Rating: 18+
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