Santa Ragione, the Italian indie studio behind the critically acclaimed Saturnalia, just announced the December 2 release date for their new horror game Horses. But there’s a massive problem. The game has been banned from Steam, and after two years of trying to get answers from Valve, the studio still doesn’t know exactly why. Now Santa Ragione says they face a high risk of shutting down entirely because being locked out of Steam means losing access to over 75 percent of the PC gaming market.
Horses will launch on Epic Games Store, GOG, Itch.io, and Humble Store for $4.99. But without Steam, the studio admits they likely won’t recoup the development costs. They’ve set aside funds to support the game for six months after launch, but beyond that, the future is uncertain. This isn’t just a minor inconvenience. This could kill one of the most interesting indie studios working today.
What Happened With the Steam Ban
In 2023, Santa Ragione submitted a request for a Steam Coming Soon page for Horses. Valve responded with an unusual demand: submit a playable build. Co-founder Pietro Righi Riva told IGN this was the first time Valve had asked for a playable version just to open a Coming Soon page. The team scrambled to create a build that could be played start to finish, even though they were only halfway through development.
Weeks passed with no response. Then Valve rejected the game entirely. The reason given was vague: Horses featured “themes, imagery, or descriptions that [Steam] won’t distribute.” The rejection notice also included a line stating Valve won’t distribute games depicting “sexual conduct involving a minor” regardless of intention or if done in a “subtle way that could be defined as a ‘grey area.'”
Here’s the problem. Valve never specified which scenes or content triggered the ban. For months, Santa Ragione repeatedly asked what caused the rejection and offered to change any problematic content. They got no answer. They reached out to Valve contacts who had worked with them on previous games. Those contacts claimed they didn’t know the specific reasons and said it wouldn’t be possible to find out. IGN contacted Valve for comment but received no response before publication.
What Santa Ragione Thinks Went Wrong
The studio suspects the ban stemmed from a scene in the early build where a man visits the farm with his young daughter. During this scene, a “horse” carries the child on her back. In Horses, the “horses” are naked adult women wearing horse masks who are treated as animals by the farm’s inhabitants. The dehumanization is the point. The game is exploring themes of power, trauma, and complicity through deeply uncomfortable imagery.
After receiving the ban, Santa Ragione changed that scene. The character riding the horse is now an adult, not a child. But Valve has refused to reconsider the decision despite this change. The studio submitted the updated version multiple times. They offered to modify any other content Valve found objectionable. Nothing worked. Valve wouldn’t even confirm whether the child scene was the actual problem or if something else triggered the ban.
What makes this especially frustrating is that other platforms had no issues with Horses. GOG, Itch.io, and Humble Store approved it without concerns. Epic Games Store asked the studio to update screenshots to remove nudity from the store page, which Santa Ragione did immediately, and the game was accepted. Console partners have seen the game and raised no content concerns. Horses has received PEGI and ESRB ratings that would be required for console distribution.
The Artistic Intent Behind Horses
Horses is a three-hour first-person horror adventure that takes place over 14 days on a secluded farm. You play as a college student taking a summer job as a farmhand. Each day brings increasingly surreal tasks as the facade of normalcy crumbles. The game combines interactive scenes, live-action intermissions, and silent-era title cards to create a narrative about familial trauma, puritan values, totalitarian power, and personal accountability.
The “horses” are naked adult women wearing horse masks who are treated as livestock. They’re fed carrots, ridden on people’s shoulders, subjected to humiliation and violence, and forced to watch propaganda. The game challenges players to either accept what they’re seeing and participate in the horror, or try to subvert the system running the farm. It’s deliberately unsettling because it’s exploring how dehumanization works and how complicity develops.
Santa Ragione argues the nudity isn’t sexual. The women are portrayed as unclothed because they’re treated as animals, and animals don’t wear clothes. The dehumanization only works if they’re stripped of the markers of personhood. Director Andrea Lucco Borlera is collaborating with the studio to create something that uses horror conventions to examine real-world dynamics of power and control.
Why This Ban Matters Beyond One Game
Santa Ragione published a lengthy FAQ on their website accusing Steam of “moralizing censorship” and calling Valve’s reasoning “deliberately vague and unfounded.” The studio says this isn’t about adult content restrictions pushed by payment processors. This is about Valve making subjective decisions about what themes and imagery are acceptable without providing clear guidelines or appeal processes.
The FAQ includes strong language: “We reject subjective obscenity standards and believe this kind of moralizing censorship evokes a darker past.” The studio calls the situation “scary, humiliating, and patronizing,” arguing that Valve’s lack of transparency creates a system where developers can be banned without understanding what they did wrong or how to fix it.
This isn’t the first time Valve has banned games without clear explanations, and it won’t be the last. Steam’s content policies give Valve broad discretion to reject anything it deems inappropriate, but the lack of transparency and appeal options creates real problems for developers. When one platform controls 75 percent of the PC market, getting banned effectively means your game won’t reach most potential customers.
Santa Ragione invested over $100,000 developing Horses. They say they feel “tricked and betrayed” by Valve. After being asked to submit a playable build for a Coming Soon page, then receiving a ban without specific feedback, then being ignored for two years despite repeated attempts to communicate, it’s hard to disagree. Whether you think the content in Horses is acceptable or not, the process Valve followed here is broken.
Who Is Santa Ragione
If you’re not familiar with Santa Ragione, you should be. The Italian studio was founded in 2010 by Pietro Righi Riva and Nicolò Tedeschi. They’ve created experimental, boundary-pushing games like FOTONICA, MirrorMoon EP, and Wheels of Aurelia. Their most recent release, Saturnalia, is a survival horror roguelike set in a small Sardinian village during an ancient festival.
Saturnalia received widespread critical acclaim when it launched in 2022 on Epic Games Store and consoles, then came to Steam in November 2023. It was nominated for the Seumas McNally Grand Prize and Excellence in Visual Art at IGF 2022. Eurogamer’s Chris Tapsell called it “deeply unsettling” in the best possible way. The game combines folk horror with roguelike mechanics and procedurally generated village layouts to create something genuinely unique.
Santa Ragione’s approach focuses on achieving visceral responses from players through experimental design. Their games explore controversial politics, vertigo-inducing speeds, desolate landscapes, and claustrophobic atmospheres. They’re not making safe, commercial products. They’re pushing boundaries and taking creative risks. That’s exactly the kind of studio the indie scene needs.
What Happens Next
Horses launches December 2 on Epic, GOG, Humble, and Itch for $4.99. Santa Ragione is hoping the publicity from the Steam ban controversy will drive enough sales on other platforms to keep the studio afloat. But they’re realistic about the challenges. Without Steam, discoverability drops dramatically. The majority of PC gamers shop exclusively on Steam and won’t venture to other platforms even for a $5 game.
The studio says they’re working on two new prototypes and seeking funding, but those projects are in early stages. If Horses doesn’t perform well enough on the available platforms, Santa Ragione might not survive long enough to finish them. That would be a massive loss for indie games. Studios like Santa Ragione are rare. They make weird, challenging, uncomfortable art games that wouldn’t exist if everyone played it safe.
Valve still hasn’t publicly commented on the Horses ban despite multiple outlets reaching out for clarification. The company rarely explains specific content decisions, preferring to point to general policies rather than discuss individual cases. Whether Valve will reconsider the ban now that the game has removed the potentially problematic child scene and gained attention from the controversy remains to be seen.
FAQs
Why was Horses banned from Steam?
Valve told Santa Ragione that Horses featured “themes, imagery, or descriptions” Steam won’t distribute, with specific mention of content depicting minors. However, Valve never specified which scenes caused the ban, and after two years of requests for clarification, the studio still doesn’t have concrete answers.
What is Horses about?
Horses is a three-hour first-person horror game where you work as a farmhand over 14 days on a secluded farm. The “horses” are naked adult women wearing horse masks who are treated as livestock. The game explores themes of dehumanization, power, trauma, and complicity through deliberately unsettling imagery.
When does Horses release and where can I buy it?
Horses launches December 2, 2025 for $4.99 on Epic Games Store, GOG, Itch.io, and Humble Store. It is not available on Steam due to the ban, and there are no plans for console versions currently due to lack of funds.
Who developed Horses?
Horses is developed by Santa Ragione, the Italian indie studio behind Saturnalia, Wheels of Aurelia, MirrorMoon EP, and FOTONICA. The studio was founded in 2010 by Pietro Righi Riva and Nicolò Tedeschi and is known for experimental, boundary-pushing games.
Did Santa Ragione change the content Valve objected to?
Yes. Santa Ragione suspects a scene featuring a child riding one of the “horses” triggered the ban. They changed that scene so the rider is now an adult, but Valve has refused to reconsider the ban despite this change and multiple resubmission attempts.
Why doesn’t Santa Ragione just release on other platforms?
They are releasing on Epic, GOG, Humble, and Itch, but Steam represents over 75 percent of the PC gaming market. Without Steam access, the studio says they likely won’t recoup the $100,000+ development costs, which could force them to shut down.
Has Steam banned other games without clear explanations?
Yes, Valve has a history of banning games without providing specific reasons or allowing appeals. The company’s content policies give it broad discretion to reject anything deemed inappropriate, but the lack of transparency creates challenges for developers trying to comply.
What has been the reaction to the Horses ban?
The indie game community has largely expressed frustration with Valve’s lack of transparency and appeal process. Many developers worry they could face similar bans without understanding what content crossed the line or how to fix it.
Conclusion
The Horses controversy exposes fundamental problems with how Steam handles content moderation. Valve controls the majority of the PC gaming market, which gives the company enormous power over which games succeed and which disappear. When that power is exercised without transparency, clear guidelines, or meaningful appeal processes, developers are left in impossible positions. Santa Ragione changed the content they believe triggered the ban, offered to modify anything else Valve found objectionable, and spent two years trying to get specific feedback. They got silence. Whether Horses’ content is too provocative for a mainstream platform is a legitimate debate. What’s not debatable is that the process Valve followed here was broken and unfair. A system that allows a company to ban games without explaining why, refuse to reconsider despite content changes, and ignore repeated requests for clarification is a system that needs reform. Santa Ragione might not survive this. A talented studio with a decade of innovative games under its belt could shut down because one company made an opaque decision and refused to communicate. That should concern everyone who cares about indie games and creative freedom. Horses launches December 2 on Epic, GOG, Humble, and Itch. Whether you’re curious about the game or just want to support a studio getting crushed by platform politics, that’s where you can find it. Because Steam won’t let you.