Last week, we reported that disturbing horror game Horses had been banned from Steam, with developer Santa Ragione claiming that Valve refused to provide a clear reason for the ban or discuss it further with the studio. Now, at the last possible minute before the game was set to release widely across other PC store fronts, Epic Games Store has also banned Horses.
This news was shared with us by Santa Ragione, who passed on a press release stating that Epic informed them 24 hours before the game’s release that it would not be distributing Horses, despite the studio’s build being approved for release weeks earlier. Per the developer, no specifics on what content was at issue were provided, “only broad and demonstrably incorrect claims that it violated their content guidelines.” When Santa Ragione appealed, the studio says it was denied 12 hours later “without further explanation.”
As Santa Ragione explains it:
Epic’s decision comes after the overwhelming support Santa Ragione received last week upon the disclosure of Steam’s ban, including the public announcement by Epic’s and Steam’s competitor GOG that they would promote and support the game. We do not know what triggered Epic’s sudden decision. Following the announcement of Steam’s ban, Horses became highly visible online, with strong support and a small but vocal opposition. It is difficult not to wonder whether this visibility played a greater role in Epic’s choice than any newly discovered issue with the game itself.
IGN has asked Epic Games for comment and will update when and if we hear back. At the time of this article’s publication, Horses is still listed as “Coming Soon” on the Epic Games Store.
Horses was previously revealed several years ago, and has made appearances in showcases like The Indie Horror Showcase and Day of the Devs. It’s gained some attention for its deeply unsettling premise: a young man travels to a remote horse farm to work for several weeks over the summer, only to find the farmer’s “horses” are actually enslaved, naked humans with horse masks affixed to their heads. Horses, says Santa Ragione, is meant to be upsetting: it’s at least partly a commentary on what sorts of morally horrifying things people will accept or even participate in without pushback, a subject we found was executed artfully, if upsettingly, in our 7/10 review of the game.
And yet, the game has been banned from now both Steam and Epic. Last week, we reported that developer Santa Ragione said it was rejected from Steam after the team submitted an unfinished but playable build of the game in order to create a store page, an unusual request that Valve said was necessary. Valve then rejected Horses, generally citing its Steam Onboarding Documentation, as well as the sentence, “Regardless of a developer’s intentions with their product, we will not distribute content that appears, in our judgment, to depict sexual conduct involving a minor.”
Santa Ragione has since guessed this was in relation to a scene in the game at the time that depicted a fully clothed child “riding” one of the horses on their shoulders. However, the studio says it has since changed that scene to involve an adult instead of a child, and that all characters in the game are clearly adults in their 20s and up, a fact that has remained true in the final version of the game that IGN reviewed, ironically, on the Epic Games Store. Santa Ragione says it was not given the opportunity to resubmit a build to be reconsidered by Valve, and remains unsure if this scene was even what triggered the ban in the first place.
In response, Valve issued a statement claiming it “gave the developer feedback about why we couldn’t ship the game on Steam, consistent with our onboarding rules and guidelines” and that its internal content review team discussed a re-review “extensively” but decided against it.
Horses is now available on itch.io, GOG (which publicly expressed support for the game last week), and Humble (which Santa Ragione says confirmed to the studio it would be available).
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter for IGN. Got a story tip? Send it to rvalentine@ign.com.
