Valve Comments on Its Refusal to Allow Horror Game “Horses” on Steam

The company determined that an early build of the game contained “sexual conduct involving a minor.”

After Italian studio Santa Ragione publicly warned that Steam’s ban on their new title Horses threatened the studio’s survival, Valve issued its first formal response, offering “additional context” for its decision.

The game examines the weight of family trauma, puritanical values, authoritarian control, and personal accountability. It is set on a farm where unclothed people are kept and used as “horses.” Although the game contains numerous scenes with nudity, the developers stress that it is not pornographic and is not intended to arouse.

The dispute with Valve began in 2023. The company asked to review an early, unfinished build. After reviewing that build, the studio received an automated notice: the game would not be distributed on Steam because, in the platform’s view, it included “sexual conduct involving a minor”.

Santa Ragione says the contested moment involved a visitor’s daughter riding on an adult woman’s shoulders and that the scene carried no sexual connotation. During subsequent revisions, the character’s age was raised to 20 (as were the ages of all characters), but Valve declined to re-evaluate the final build.

Following the public attention, Valve released an official statement:

Valve did not provide an explanation for why it refused to reassess the final build of Horses.

Source: iXBT.games