Late last month, Santa Ragione, the developer behind the indie horror game Horses, revealed that its title had been banned by Steam in 2023 while the game was still in development. The game had been set to release on Epic Games Store this week, but now Epic has banned Horses as well.
Santa Ragione shared a lengthy statement on its site, as well as reproduced messages from Epic that broke the news about the cancellation a day before launch. The dispatch from Epic cites violations of its inappropriate content policy and hateful or abusive content policies. Epic also stated that Horses got an Adults Only rating, and those games are excluded from the store.
In response, Santa Ragione mentioned that Epic approved the game for release just over three weeks ago, and that the actual rating for the game was M for Mature under the ESRB and PEGI 18 in international territories. The studio went on to explain again that Horses is not a sexually charged adult game.
“We immediately appealed their decision through all suggested channels, stating clearly that the game does NOT contain explicit or frequent depictions of sexual behavior,” reads the statement from Santa Ragione. “All nudity in the game is completely censored via pixelation. There is never any visible sexual act involving genitalia and all animations are stylized and unrealistic. Additionally, in the three hours of gameplay contained in the game, there are only four brief and censored sexual sequences, with two of them happening mainly off camera. And finally, we explained that the content presented does not in any way promote abuse (including animal abuse). The game is a strong critique of violence and abuse in general.”
Although Santa Ragione was given an opportunity to appeal, the judgment was quickly upheld and now the game is banned from the two biggest PC storefronts… and possibly a third as well. Horses had been set to be released on Humble Store, but the listing now redirects away from the game’s page and it doesn’t appear to be listed on that site any longer. GameSpot has reached out to Humble for comment.
Santa Ragione previously disclosed that it invested $100,000 in the development of Horses, and that it may close as a result of being locked out of Steam. Getting banned from Epic may have made the studio’s situation even more difficult. Regardless, Horses is now available for $5 on GOG, and Itch.io. And while it’s not an adults-only game, some aspects of it are very disturbing. The horses at the center of the game aren’t really horses at all. They’re people who have been forced to wear horse masks and live like a horse.