- Valve banned the release of HORSES on Steam, deeming it a violation of their rules regarding sexual content involving minors.
- Epic Games Store cancelled the launch 24 hours before its release, citing "problematic behavior" and excessive content.
- The Italian studio Santa Ragione denounces censorship, opacity in policies and an almost unsustainable financial situation
- While major retailers reject it, HORSES is sold on GOG, Itch.io and Humble, becoming a symbol of the debate about limits in horror.
The launch of HORSES, Independent horror game with a disturbing aesthetic and a very unconventional approach, has become the new focus of attention around Steam and content policiesWhat was intended to be the discreet release of an experimental work lasting only a few hours has ended up revealing a Open conflict between the Italian studio Santa Ragione and two of the world's most influential PC stores.
While its creators insist that it is a scathing critique of violence, family trauma, and power dynamicsBoth Valve and Epic Games have chosen to withdraw from the project, claiming that some scenes cross lines that their internal rules do not allow. The result is a thorny debate, very much alive in Europe and Spain as well, about Where to draw the line between creative freedom, responsibility, and censorship in the field of horror video games.
A summer on the most unsettling farm in indie horror
HORSES puts the player in the shoes of a summer helper on a rural farm, seemingly ordinary, where he must collaborate during fourteen days with a farmer as enigmatic as he is authoritarian. What begins as a seasonal job with routine tasks ends up transforming into an increasingly surreal and unsettling experience.
As the study itself explained, the game mixes interactive scenes with live-action sequencesa presentation in black and white and posters in the style of silent films, and offers unique events for each day. This structure, combined with its Approximate duration of three hoursThis makes it more of an experimental piece than a typical commercial title, something that, even so, sparked the interest of a part of the public thanks to the trailers published by Santa Ragione.
The central premise revolves around a community in which the so-called “Horses” are actually humans wearing horse masks and they assume that role within a strange social hierarchy. Based on this idea, the game explores, according to its creators, the weight of family trauma, puritan values, and the logic of totalitarian systems, putting the player in front of uncomfortable decisions that test their sense of personal responsibility.
Far from relying on cheap scares, HORSES seeks a terror more psychological, tense, and deliberately uncomfortableSanta Ragione insists that the toughest scenes rely on suggestion, and that in some cases the most problematic moments are resolved "off-camera" to intensify the effect without resorting to the explicit.
The scene that set off all the alarms on Steam
The conflict with Steam dates back to June 2023a few days before the studio officially unveiled the game. It was then that Valve first informed Santa Ragione that HORSES could not be published in your storeSince then, and for two years, the team claims to have unsuccessfully requested more concrete clarifications and a clear way to adapt the content to the platform's rules.
On the game's official website, the developers point to a specific scene set during a visit to the farm as a possible trigger for the decision. In it, a father and his daughter arrive at the place; the girl wants to ride one of the "horses" and can choose, which leads to an interactive dialogue in which the player guides, with a rein, a naked adult woman who is carrying a young girl on her shouldersThis juxtaposition, even without explicit sexual content, would have been decisive for Valve's internal review.
Santa Ragione maintains that “The scene is not sexual in any way.” and that the goal is to generate tension and debate, not to eroticize the situation. After the initial clash with Steam, the studio modified that sequence, replacing the young woman with a woman in her twentiesFurthermore, they argue that the dialogue makes more sense with an older character, given that it addresses the social structure of the world of HORSES and the power relations among its inhabitants.
In their public statement, the team is unequivocal: “Our game is not pornographic”They acknowledge that it includes sexual elements and uncomfortable material, but claim that They are never intended to excite the player, if not then to raise questions about limits, control systems, and moralityFrom their perspective, the whole experience revolves around tension and emotional discomfort, not erotic content.
Valve's official position: sexual content and minors
As the controversy grew and international media, including European outlets, began to report on the case, Valve decided to clarify its position through a statement sent to GamesIndustry.bizIn it, the company recalls that He first reviewed the game in 2023, when the studio set a tentative release date on Steamworks for a few months later.
According to Valve's version, the review team detected enough on the HORSES store page reasons for concern that warrant demanding access to the full buildThis is a procedure, they explain, that they sometimes apply when they suspect that the playable content could to violate its internal guidelinesespecially in matters of sexual violence or representation of minors.
After playing the build and discussing it internally, Valve informed Santa Ragione that I wouldn't publish the game on Steam.In a subsequent message, the company was more specific: “We will not distribute content that, in our judgment, appears to depict sexual conduct involving a minor.”Under that interpretation, the title automatically fell outside their standards, regardless of the studio's artistic intention.
The Italian developer, for his part, regrets what he considers a deliberately opaque policyIn their statement, they indicate that they believe Steam maintains unclear rules for... adjust their decisions to what best suits the platform at any given time and thus avoid committing to overly specific criteria. They also criticize the accusation for being so generic and sensitive that, at a public level, it is "very difficult to refute."
Beyond this specific case, the clash comes in a context where Valve was already receiving pressure from payment processors, internet providers, and other companies to tighten the filter on adult content. However, Santa Ragione insists that The ban on HORSES would not be related to those recent restrictionsbut would be the exclusive result of the criteria of its curatorial team.
Economic impact and risk of closure for Santa Ragione
The consequences of being dropped from Steam are particularly harsh for a studio like Santa Ragione, which specializes in independent projects with an experimental profile. In their message to the community, the team acknowledges that The ban left them with virtually no options for finding a publisher or an external partner. willing to support the final stage of development.
In the PC gaming industry, Steam remains the main gateway to the general publicMany investors and publishers consider a title that cannot be distributed on that platform to be unviable, something that, according to the study, forced them to resorting to private financing from friends to be able to finish HORSES. That personal gamble has placed them, they admit, in an unsustainable financial situation if the game fails to recover at least its basic costs.
Since its launch, Santa Ragione has been committed to continue supporting the game for about six monthsDuring that period, they plan to correct errors, polish details, and introduce quality of life improvements that the community can demand. However, they are aware that, without Steam's visibility, it will be difficult to achieve sales figures that guarantee a comfortable future for the studio.
The co-founder, Pietro Righi Riva, has even gone so far as to claim that All the money generated by HORSES will go to the author and the people who contributed funds to complete the project.Under that scheme, he admits, it is likely that there is no economic margin left to produce a new gameUnless a "miracle" occurs and the title performs exceptionally well in the stores where it is available.
Epic Games Store also backs out at the last minute
When the conflict with Steam became public, many players and analysts assumed that HORSES would try to rely on other PC stores to compensate for the absence on Valve's platform. For a while, it seemed that the Epic Games Store It was going to play that role: the game had a release date and a price advertised in its catalog.
However, Santa Ragione herself revealed on social media that Epic decided to cancel the launch just 24 hours before the scheduled dateThe title, which finally premiered on December 2th 2025 On PC, it never appeared in Tim Sweeney's store, even though a build had been authorized and reviewed a couple of months earlier without any apparent objections.
According to the study's version, Epic informed them that HORSES was in breach of its content guidelines for “frequent depictions of problematic behavior”According to the team, a company representative even indicated that the game would receive a ESRB rating: “Adults Only”Something that, at least for now, is not reflected on the official websites of the ESRB or the European PEGI.
The developers point out that, as already happened with Valve, They did not receive a detailed explanation of which specific scenes violated the rulesThey speak of “general claims” and “incorrect descriptions” of the content, and assert that their The appeal was rejected about 12 hours later without Epic admitting to reviewing additional changes or new builds.
Meanwhile, Santa Ragione claims that the Epic Games Store even accused the game to promote animal abuseAn interpretation that the study completely rejects. They emphasize that HORSES takes the exact opposite stance: as a harsh critique of violence and mistreatment, both towards animals and people, using the imagery of “human horses” to put the player in uncomfortable ethical dilemmas.
A premiere surrounded by controversy… far from the big stores
Despite the obstacles, HORSES finally arrived in PC on December 2nd with a price around $4,99-$5a relatively low amount for a three-hour game that relies on such a unique design. The peculiarity is that its distribution relies exclusively on alternative platforms such as Itch.io and Humble Bundle and GOG, in addition to the studio's own website.
The situation has given rise to another debate within the community, especially visible in European networks and forums: The role of stores like GOG in the face of censorshipThe Polish company, which has publicly presented the arrival of HORSES to its catalog as a source of pride, has received criticism from some players who recall past decisions to the contrary, such as the rejection of a Taiwanese horror game years back.
In any case, the presence of the title in these alternative showcases allows that Spanish and European users Those interested in experimental horror can access the work, albeit without the convenience or visibility offered by Steam. For some, this circumstance makes the game a kind of “instant cult piece”While for others it is simply another example of how arbitrary rules on adult content can be.
The case has also reignited criticism against the censorship of adult games on SteamThis issue particularly affects Japanese and Asian projects with strong sexual content. Some developers, especially in the indie scene, claim they will not stop creating these kinds of experiences despite what they consider "massive censorship" disguised as "cultural considerations" and third-party requirements.
Amid this noise, HORSES treads on delicate ground: it neither fits the mold of adult titles with explicit fanservice, nor escapes the scrutiny of stricter policies regarding sexual content and depiction of minorsThis ambiguity is largely what has made its launch a case study for those who closely follow the relationship between video games, regulation, and creative freedom.
Everything that happened surrounding HORSES reveals the growing tensions between creators of experimental horror and major distribution platformsWhile Valve and Epic hide behind their internal rules to justify the ban, Santa Ragione denounces a lack of transparency and almost irreparable financial damage; and on the other hand, stores like GOG, Itch.io, and Humble are trying to capitalize on the controversy by offering a haven for the game. For European and Spanish audiences interested in different kinds of games, HORSES has already become an uncomfortable symbol of the limits of artistic expression in video games and who really has the final say on what can—or can't—be played on PC.
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