Describing HORSES as a surreal and unnerving experience would be akin to describing American fizzy drinks as lightly sweetened. This is the latest in the eclectic output of Santa Ragione, and I’ve been fortunate enough to play the first four chapters. Well, I say fortunate, but perhaps Santa Ragione’s latest psychological horror will inflict nightmares that have me questioning my luck (in a good way).
While my demo time with HORSES was short, it was anything but sweet. Right off the bat, the black and white colour palette, deafening silence and intrusive use of short live action clips spliced into gameplay will have you off-balance. Despite sharing similar genres, HORSES is a very different kind of uncomfortable psychological horror compared to Saturnalia.
It struck me just how effective the artistic choices are made here, from the grungy visuals to the disturbingly excellent use of cringe-inducing audio (e.g the smacking sounds of eating), had me on edge. As a local kid agreeing to work on a farm for the summer, you’re immediately introduced to your farmer tutor, who’s disproportioned body and carnivorous smile animate in disquieting pleasure.
Dialogue happens via animation, followed by an old-school 1920s cutaway slide that tells you what was spoken. Despite it making my very bones crinkle and causing me to question my own sanity, HORSES had its hooves firmly planted on my jugular. I just had to see more, know more, play more. It’s still very early impressions, but I’d be lying if I said it hadn’t left a thoroughly imprinted one on my mind.
The preview build introduces the basic gameplay structure, but stops short before really throwing you into it. You play in first-person, completing assigned tasks around the farm by picking up items and ticking off jobs. Water the plants, feed the dog his slop, bury that body, eat your strangely human looking steak, that kind of normal, run-of-the-mill busywork. It looks like this will develop into a familiar routine of ensuring regular jobs are completed each in-game day, or suffering the consequences of failing to adhere to the rules.
Oh, did I mention that the horses on this farm are… distinctly human-like? Mmm, not all is well on this farm, and to say it feels sinister would be rather an understatement. The body horror and demonstration of psychological torment through the impact of slavery hits hard here and the developers pull no punches. In just the demo, I lost a race while “riding” one, watched them grovel for a carrot, and was told in no uncertain terms to never let them fornicate.
By the time the preview build ended, I was slapped with so much morbid intrigue to explore and find out more. Artistically and creatively speaking, HORSES is chock-full of terrifyingly inspired ideas of how to unsettle, destabilise and unbalance you as a player. It works brilliantly well, and I can’t wait to see what other nasty tricks the full game has in its stables.
I will preface this with being conscious of the subject matter that HORSES confronts head-on. Slavery, torture, suicide, psychological abuse, authoritarian rule over others, intense violence and body horror, to name just a few from my short time with the demo. Much like a movie that endeavours to display the ugly and full-throttled depravity of those who cause these kinds of harm, HORSES follows Santa Ragione’s portfolio of never shying away from difficult subject matter.
For some, it’s going to be incredibly disturbing and even too much. For me, I’ll always appreciate the artistic willingness to confront difficult subject matter, provided it’s in service to exploration of themes in a meaningful way, which is exactly how I felt with Saturnalia, Mediterranea Inferno, and now with HORSES too.
Most of all, I’ve come away from my brief time with HORSES desperate for more. The potential threads to follow or disobey the farmer’s orders. The opportunity to discover more about the “horses” and whether we can help or hinder them. The chance to be continually unsettled by a team clearly inspired to create something uniquely disquieting. My only current wonder will be the gameplay loop itself and whether this develops into some kind of satisfying simulator-esque pattern over the in-game days, or whether it’ll be kept relatively rudimentary in service of the themes and ideas.
Time will tell, but while I’m no equestrian, I’ve never been more morbidly interested in horses.
HORSES will be available on PC (preview platform) in 2025.
Developer: Santa Ragione
Publisher: Santa Ragione
Disclaimer: In order to complete this preview, we were provided with a promotional preview build of the game.
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