Santa Ragione, the Italian indie studio co-founded by Pietro Righi Riva and responsible for beloved indies like Saturnalia and Mediterranea Inferno, is about to launch its latest title, Horses, on the Epic Games Store, GOG, the Humble Store, and Itch.io. It's not, however, coming to Steam, and for that reason, Horses might be Santa Ragione's last game.
That's not because Santa Ragione doesn't want to release it on Steam. It very much so does, and submitted the game well within the appropriate time frame. The problem is, as Pietro Righi Riva explains in an interview with GamesIndustry.Biz, that Horses has been banned from Steam.
"After review, we will not be able to ship your game Horses on Steam," an automated message received by Santa Ragione reads, which was shared in the interview and on the game's website. "While we strive to ship most titles submitted to us, we found that this title features themes, imagery, or descriptions that we won’t distribute. Regardless of a developer’s intentions with their product, we will not distribute content that appears, in our judgment, to depict sexual conduct involving a minor."
"While every product submitted is unique, if your product features this representation—even in a subtle way that could be defined as a ‘grey area’—it will be rejected by Steam. For instance, setting your game in a high school but declaring your characters are of legal age would fall into that category and be banned. This app has been banned and cannot be reused. Re-submissions of this app, even with modifications, will not be accepted."
Valve has fallen entirely silent to Riva, and has not explained what scenes in the game it has an issue with. Riva also explained that when he first submitted Horses to Valve for approval, Valve requested that Riva send them a full build of the game so they could play through it in its entirety. Not only is this a rare occurrence, but at the time, the game was only half finished, meaning Riva had to rush to submit an unfinished version of the game that could, at the very least, allow Valve to play through an incomplete version of the final game.
Which is where Santa Ragione believes the ban came from. "We think that the ban may have been triggered during the initial Steam submission by an incomplete scene on day six, in which a man and his young daughter visit the farm...What followed was an interactive dialogue sequence where the player is leading, by a lead as if they were a horse, a naked adult woman with a young girl on her shoulders. The scene is not sexual in any way, but it is possible that the juxtaposition is what triggered the flag."
Santa Ragione clarifies that the scene was changed since the initial submission, which was, again, an unfinished version of the game. It now depicts an adult woman in her twenties rather than a young girl, both "to avoid the juxtaposition and more importantly because the dialogue delivered in that scene, which deals with the societal structure in the world of HORSES, works much better when delivered by an older character."
With the ban being permanent, and Santa Ragione likely unable to recoup the development costs of Horses without the game being available on Steam, it's likely that the studio will close after Horses is released, barring Horses becoming the best-selling game on other digital storefronts.
"I don't want to make a final decision before seeing how the game does on launch. But if things go the way that I expect them to go, then I think [studio's closure] is inevitable," said Riva in the interview. "All the money we'll earn is gonna go to the author and to the people who have offered money to finish the project. So there will likely be no money left to make a new [game]… Unless a miracle happens and Horses does very well."
Riva continued, "It's always been meaningful seeing that our games resonated with people. We've always known that we never made a game that had mass appeal. So everyone who connected with our games, I feel personally connected to in a profound way. And if this is the last game that we get to make, I would tell them not to be sad, because it [is a game that] can stand on its own."
Horses will release on PC on GOG, the Humble Store, the Epic Games Store, and Itch.io on December 2, 2025.
About the author: David has been writing about videogames, technology, and culture since 2020, with a focus on reporting daily news across multiple publications, including GameDaily.Biz, GameSkinny, and PlayStation Universe before joining Wccftech in 2025. David started contributing as Canada/US reporter for Wccftech's gaming section in 2025. Besides being up-to-date on the industry's movements, he loves interviewing developers, reviewing games, and writing intricate essays about the symbolism and layered meanings to be found in rich narratives as he's done for publications like GamesIndustry.Biz, LostInCult, and others. Outside of games he loves movies, music, theatre, his hometown, and his family, though not necessarily in that order.
Follow Wccftech on Google to get more of our news coverage in your feeds.
