The controversy around the surreal horror game Horses seems to only be adding to the game's mystique. Stores like GOG and Itch.io, which are carrying Horses despite its ban from platforms like Steam and Epic, now list the game as their number-one top seller. At least one storefront has seemingly reversed course on the ban, too, as Humble has once again listed Horses for sale.
Italian developer Santa Ragione describes Horses as "an enigmatic first person horror adventure that blurs the line between reality and the darkest corners of your imagination." It's centered on a shocking image: a farm full of humans, naked except for a horse mask covering their faces, all being treated as livestock.
Horses was banned from Steam back in 2023, when the game was still in early development, Santa Rangione says in an official FAQ. It was set to launch across every major competitor to Steam on December 2, but Epic and Humble both seemingly got cold feet heading into the release, both removing the game from sale at the last minute.
But now, Horses is back on Humble. The platform's team "saw the press coverage and temporarily delisted Horses to reevaluate it," as Santa Rangione explains to IGN. "After a full review they determined that while the content is heavy, nothing in the game warrants removal from their store." That said, the developer still wishes the store "had informed us that this process was ongoing."
Horses has remained available on GOG and Itch.io stores since release, and it's now at the top of the best-seller charts on both platforms. (It is, however, marked as adult content on Itch, which means you need an account opted-in for 18+ content in order to see it on the store.)
HORSES is currently the best-selling game on GOG 😱
— @santaragione.com (@santaragione.com.bsky.social) 2025-12-03T22:59:31.127Z
So what's so terrible to have stirred up all this controversy in the first place? Valve told the developer at the time of the 2023 ban that "we will not distribute content that appears, in our judgment, to depict sexual conduct involving a minor," and no resubmissions, "even with modifications," would be accepted.
"We think the ban may have been triggered during the initial Steam submission by an incomplete scene on day six, in which a man and his young daughter visit the farm," Santa Rangione explains. "The daughter wants to ride one of the horses (in the game the 'horses' are humans wearing a horse mask) and gets to pick which one. What followed was an interactive dialogue sequence where the player is leading, by a lead as if they were a horse, a naked adult woman with a young girl on her shoulders. The scene is not sexual in any way, but it is possible that the juxtaposition is what triggered the flag."
In the final version of the game, the devs "changed the character in the scene to be a twenty-something woman, both to avoid the juxtaposition and more importantly because the dialogue delivered in that scene, which deals with the societal structure in the world of HORSES, works much better when delivered by an older character."
Santa Ragione invested two years of development time and $100,000 into the development of Horses, and expected that the studio would "likely" shut down if the game wasn't listed on Steam, which remains by far the biggest seller of PC games and the central lifeline for most indie titles. Clearly, the buzz around the ban has had the opposite effect for this game – but future devs tackling touchy subject matter, who can't count on a supportive groundswell of this scale, might still have reason to fear Valve's policies.
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