Facing the prospect of being shut down as a studio following Valve's decision to ban the sale of indie horror titles on its Steam platform, GOG, the CD Projekt Red-owned digital distribution platform dedicated to DRM-free games and digital preservation, has confirmed that the controversial title is on its site.
In a statement shared with outlets and posted on social media, GOG confirmed that it is “proud” to host Horses, adding that players “should be able to choose the experiences that speak to them.”
We're proud to give HORSES a home on GOG, giving players another way to enjoy the game. We've always believed that players should be able to choose the experiences that speak to them.
To support Santa Ragione Studio during these difficult times, we've decided to start pre-orders on the horses today – grab yours and celebrate their creativity!
Aside from GOG, Horses will also be available on the Epic Games Store, Itch.io and the Humble Store, not on Steam after Valve informed Santa Ragione Studios of a “final decision”.
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As TheGamer reported earlier in the week, Valve was sent an early build of the game in 2023, and deemed it too inappropriate to allow the game to be released on its popular PC platform, possibly due to a now-edited sequence featuring “sexual conduct involving a minor”.
Originally in that build from 2023, the in-game sequence was constructed as follows:
“The girl wants to ride a horse (the “horses” in the game are people wearing horse masks) and choose which one,” the developers explain. “What followed was an interactive dialogue sequence where the player was leading, on a lead as if they were a horse, a naked adult woman with a young girl on her shoulders.
“The scene is in no way sexual, but it is possible that the juxtaposition is what triggers the flag,” they continue. “We've changed the character in the scene to a twenty-something woman, both to avoid juxtaposition and more importantly because the dialogue delivered in that scene, which deals with the social structure in the world of horses, works much better when delivered by an older character.”
For its part, Valve claimed that the ban was not “out of nowhere” or “for no reason” as many were postulating. In a statement shared with outlets, Valve said it had “discussed” the matter with Santa Ragione in detail.
“After our team played through the build and reviewed the content, we provided feedback to the developer as to why we could not ship the game to Steam, consistent with our onboarding rules and guidelines,” the statement read in part. “After some time, the developer asked us to reconsider the review, and our internal content review team discussed it in detail and informed the developer of our final decision that we would no longer ship the game on Steam.”
With the game set for release on December 2, it's only a matter of time before everyone sees for themselves whether Steam was justified in its decision, even after that specific visual edit.
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