It's been 18 months since developer Santa Ragione—the widely acclaimed studio behind games like Saturnalia and Mediterranea Inferno—unveiled its unnerving narrative first-person horror title Horses. And after a slight delay, the game finally has a release date, hitting the Epic Games Store, Humble Store, GOG, and Itch.io on December 2nd. However, one showcase is conspicuously missing from this list: Santa Ragione confirmed today that Horses has, in fact, been banned from Steam.
For those unfamiliar, Horses, which is being developed in collaboration with director Andrea Lucco Borlera, takes place over 14 days on a rural farm where players working during the summer must complete “increasingly surreal” tasks. “When the sun sets and the façade of calm crumbles,” teases Santa Ragione, “you decide whether to take the safe route or venture into the hidden depths of the farm.” The ensuing three-hour adventure combines “interactive scenes, live-action intermissions, monochrome graphics and silent film credits” into a story about “the burden of family trauma and puritanical values, the dynamics of totalitarian power and the ethics of personal responsibility.” This is a game by Chris Tapsell from Eurogamer called was “deeply disturbing” when he played it last year, thanks in large part to the naked human “horses”.
But it turns out that even before Horses was announced in June 2023, Santa Ragione was fighting Valve behind the scenes. The full story is very long and we spoke with studio co-founder Pietro Rigi Riva elsewhere to paint a clearer picture. The bottom line, however, is that while Horses passed the vetting process on all other PC storefronts, it couldn't be sold on Steam—effectively denying it access to 75 percent of the PC gaming audience, Santa Ragione claims—and leaving the famed studio in a financially precarious position, now facing closure.
You can read full, much longer interview with Pietro – on Santa Ragione's fight with Valve and his hopes for change at Valve – elsewhere on Eurogamer. For horses, it will cost €4.99/$4.99. Epic Games Store, GOG, Humble storeAnd Itch.io December 2.
