Horses, a horror game that was previously banned on Steam, has also been banned at the last minute by the Epic Games Store
Blog Andrew Joseph 02 Dec , 2025 0
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 further discussions with the studio. Now, at the last minute before the game is ready for a wider release on other PC stores, the Epic Games Store has also banned Horses.
The news was shared with us by Santa Ragione, who passed along a press release stating that Epic informed them 24 hours before the game's release that Epic would not be distributing the horses, even though the studio's version had been approved for release weeks earlier. According to the developer, no specific information about the content in question was provided, “just a broad and patently false claim that it violated their content guidelines.” When Santa Ragione appealed, the studio said it was dismissed 12 hours later “without further explanation.”
As Santa Ragione explains:
Epic's decision comes after Santa Ragione received overwhelming support last week after the Steam ban was revealed, including public announcements from Epic and Steam rival GOG that they would promote and support the game. We don't know what triggered Epic's sudden decision. After the Steam ban was announced, Horses became highly visible online, receiving outpouring of support and a small but vocal backlash. It's hard not to wonder whether that visibility played a bigger role in Epic's choices than the newfound problems with the game itself.
IGN has asked Epic Games for comment and will update once we receive a response. At the time of publication, Horses is Still listed as “Coming Soon” on the Epic Games Store.
Ma was revealed several years ago and has appeared at shows like the Indie Horror Show and Developer Days. It attracted some attention for its deeply disturbing premise: A young man travels to a remote horse farm to work for a few weeks over the summer, only to discover that the rancher's “horses” are actually enslaved, naked humans with horse masks on their heads. Horses is meant to be unsettling, San Ragione says: it's at least partly a commentary on what morally horrifying things people will accept without resistance or even engage in, a theme we found Smartly executed, if somewhat disturbing, in our 7/10 review of the game.
However, the game has been banned from Steam and Epic from now on. last week, we reported Developer Santa Ragione said the game was rejected by Steam after the team submitted an unfinished but playable version of the game to create a store page, which Valve said was necessary and an unusual request. Valve subsequently rejected Horses, citing primarily its Steam onboarding documentation and this sentence: “Regardless of a developer's intent for their product, we will not distribute content that, in our judgment, involves the sexual conduct of minors.”
San Ragione later speculated that this had something to do with a scene in the game at the time, which depicted a clothed child “riding” a horse on their shoulders. However, the studio stated that they later changed the scene to have an adult involved instead of a child, and that all of the characters in the game are clearly adults in their 20s and older, a fact that remains true in the final version of the game: IGN reviewedIronically, on the Epic Games Store. Santa Ragione said they were not given the opportunity to resubmit the build for Valve to reconsider, and are still unsure if this scenario was what initially triggered the ban. The studio claims that it will likely have to shut down after Horses launches if it fails to attract a larger audience on Steam.
In response, Valve issued a statement claiming that it “provided feedback to the developer on why we were unable to publish the game on Steam, in compliance with our onboarding rules and guidelines” and that its internal content moderation team discussed the re-moderation “extensively” but decided not to do so.
Horses now available on itch.io, GOG (who publicly expressed support for the game last week) and Humble (Santa Ragione confirmed to the studio it will be available).
Rebekah Valentine is a senior reporter at IGN. Have a story tip? Send it to [email protected].