The Best Horse Games to Play on PC and Console in 2025
I know from my search traffic analytics that many people look for horse games, specifically for new horse games and for horse games on PC or console rather than on mobile. Those of you who read TMQ regularly and keep up to date with my news and reviews will know what’s out there already, but these summaries are for everyone else… and they’re an excellent way to help more people discover my site!
The horse game space has definitely gotten more active in recent years, compared to how little was going on when I first started exploring this market in detail. This list is quite a bit longer now than the first best-of list I put together back in 2019!
Two things to note before we start:
What is “best” is of course incredibly subjective, and many of the games on this list are flawed but still worth a look. I’m including more games rather than fewer here so you can check them out, rather than actually giving all of these titles a “best of” rating.
I’m way behind on doing in depth reviews, so I’m including some games here that I haven’t played myself, or haven’t spent a lot of time with. I recommend looking at Steam reviews and asking around the TMQ communities for further insight if you find it hard to pick a starting point!
With all that said, let’s dive in: Which horse games should you be giving a try in 2024 and beyond?
Recent Releases
The Ranch of Rivershine
Available On: Steam PC
Strengths: cozy game with horses, simple but satisfying core loop, polished and pretty
Weaknesses: horse animation is a bit wooden, controls aren’t super intuitive, gameplay can get repetitive
Full Review: Planned for when the game leaves Early Access. Initial impressions here!
I haven’t played much of the game yet beyond its Demo version, but I already love what The Ranch of Rivershine is doing for our genre. It’s a cute cozy town sim with horse-focused gameplay, which is something that I’ve always wanted. Unlike some of the competition, Rivershine doesn’t lose focus or identity out of a desire to go into too many directions at once, and is a better game for it. I’m excited to give it another go some time in the future and dive in a bit more deeply, but for now I can pretty confidently guess that this game isn’t getting its 94% positive reviews on Steam out of nowhere!
The Sims 4: Horse Ranch
Available On: PC, Mac, PS4, PS5, Xbox One
Strengths: the usual Sims gameplay, horse skills & Personality traits, detailed stable building, detailed horse creation, lots of available mods and custom content
Weaknesses: animations are sometimes wonky, breeding horses is not very satisfying, not that much variety without mods (in building, buying & character creation options)
Full Review: Available here
While I was disappointed with some of the lack of variety in this expansion, I definitely had quite some fun with it. How people play The Sims can vary so drastically that it’s hard to give a general recommendation either way. If you’re interested in breeding horses over generations for example, you will probably be better served getting The Sims 3: Pets instead. I found the Horse Ranch expansion worth it, especially since the base game (The Sims 4) is free nowadays, but check out my linked review for a deeper dive into what I found good and what I found frustrating respectively.
Star Equestrian
Available On: PC, iOS, Android
Strengths: satisfying & challenging showjumping and cross country, Sims-like stable customization, MMO
Weaknesses: aggressive monetization (lootbox-based), horse visuals are a mixed bag
Full Review: Available here (for mobile version)
Back when I reviewed the mobile version of the game, the fact that it was a mobile game was practically my main issue with it. And yet, I’ve barely had the time to dive into it again on PC. Since it’s free on both platforms (meaning it unfortunately also shares the tedious monetization across platforms), you might as well give it a try!
I like Star Equestrian for its quests and competition mechanics, I just don’t recommend anyone go into it expecting to get a specific horse - because that unfortunately gets very expensive.
Tales of Rein Ravine
Available On: Steam PC
Strengths: available for free, complex riding controls, striding in jumping
Weaknesses: unintuitive beginning (see here) , not a lot of content yet
Full Review: Planned for when the game leaves Early Access. First impressions here!
If you’re someone who needs concrete goals, quests and rewards to enjoy a game, Tales of Rein Ravine may not offer enough to do yet, beyond its guided first hour or so of riding lessons. If you’re just eager to play around with a more complex riding system – you control each rein and leg individually, separately from your seat, and can use these controls to collect your horse and try out advanced dressage maneuvers – then this free early version is definitely worth a look!
I’ve seen a lot of players struggle to get started due to some not so well tutorialized point and click elements at the beginning, so make sure to use the Starting Guide on the horse game database if needed!
Horse Tales: Emerald Valley Ranch
Available On: Steam PC, PS4, PS5, Nintendo Switch
Strengths: pretty world, pretty horses, breeding with realistic genetics, stable building
Weaknesses: buggy, not a lot of long term goals after the story is done, balancing for late-game resources isn’t great
Full Review: not planned due to personal involvement
Disclaimer: I worked on this game as a Creative Producer between late 2021 and early 2024. Developer Aesir Interactive remains a client for me in my freelance work.
While technical issues, late game balancing and a short story have significantly impacted the reception of Horse Tales: Emerald Valley Ranch, I still maintain that if offers a lot of cool things that its competition doesn’t, between good-looking horse animations, collecting resources in the world and unlocking and upgrading your estate buildings, and horses with individual personalities and traits.
Since I’m obviously not an unbiased observer, I recommend looking at some Steam reviews and deciding whether the pros seem worth it and the cons seem tolerable!
Astride
Available On: Steam PC
Strengths: detailed horse creator, online multiplayer to ride together, made by equestrians
Weaknesses: no proper gameplay loop yet, very early in development
Full Review: Planned for when the game leaves Early Access.
I haven’t played Astride in much detail yet: generally, the consensus I see from reviews is that the people who like the game like it more for what it is set to become one day, rather than what it is now. Still, even though buying Astride now is more of an investment in the game’s future, there is dressage and showjumping gameplay, as well as basic multiplayer functionality and detailed horse customization.
Windstorm: Start of a Great Friendship - Remastered
Available On: Steam PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X | X
Strengths: story-based game, nice updated horse animations, photo mode
Weaknesses: awkward mix of open world and menu-based quests, standard horse girl tropes
Full Review: not planned
Disclaimer: Developer Aesir Interactive is a client of mine, and I was superficially involved in the development and release of this game.
I haven’t actually played the game much myself, so take this recommendation with a big grain of salt! What I do know is that my priorities for what needed remastering (like say, the horse animations) were taken into account in the game’s development.
While I’m sure not all of my issues with the original (review here) have been resolved with the remaster, I’m pretty sure I would have come away with a more positive opinion of this one thanks to the horse animations alone.
Horse Club Adventures 2: Hazelwood Stories
Available On: PC, PS4, PS5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X | S
Strengths: good horse game for a younger audience, story-based game, cozy and wholesome
Weaknesses: uses suboptimal horse animation (HAP), not super thrilling for adult players
Full Review: planned
Find my review of the first game in the series here. I unfortunately still haven’t played the second one, so the Strengths/Weaknesses above are a mix of speculation and reading Steam reviews. Basically: it exists, check it out!
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom
Available On: Nintendo Switch
Strengths: cute horses and animations, pretty open world
Weaknesses: honestly, not sure
Full Review: not planned
This is another game that I dare include on the list even though I haven’t actually played it myself. If you enjoyed the horses in Breath of the Wild, I daresay you’ll like them in Tears of the Kingdom – as far as I know, the models and animations and many of the mechanics remain the same. And those models and animations are really up there with the best, in my opinion. It’s worth noting that you can build your own horse-drawn carts in this one, and that is very cool.
The real reason I haven’t played this game is because I’m a disgruntled old-Zelda fan who wants proper dungeons rather than sandboxy crafting stuff from this series. But hey, that’s not the horses’ fault.
Getting Updates
These games have been out for a while, but are still getting regular updates and are worth catching up with even if you’ve played them before.
Star Stable Online
Available On: PC, Mac, iOS, Android
Strengths: lots of quests, lots of horse variety, big open world, lifetime purchase option
Weaknesses: quests can get a bit monotonous, user experience feels dated
Full Review: Available here
Star Stable Online is the horse game with the most content, most horse variety and largest player base. It’s hard to compete with something that’s been getting actively improved and added to for almost fifteen years now, unless you’re a long term player already done with all the available content.
While getting tons of horses and new outfits will cost you additional money, I find that the lifetime purchase with star coin allowance is actually a very fair monetization model for a game that offers so many new things on a regular basis.
Rival Stars Horse Racing
Available On: Steam PC, iOS, Android
Strengths: pretty and polished, satisfying gameplay loop, several breeds and disciplines now, one-time purchase on PC
Weaknesses: very simplistic riding, very menu-based
Full Review: Available here (note that the game has gotten a lot of updates and new content since)
When Rival Stars first launched on PC, it stood out as a good-looking, polished, satisfying-to-play horse racing game aimed at an adult audience rather than at kids. That description still applies, except that the game now also offers quite a bit on top, between multiple breeds and additional disciplines such as Cross Country and Steeplechase.
If you want to be the first to try every new feature, play the free mobile version. But if you prefer a one time payment over freemium monetization and the comfort of a big screen, I can highly recommend playing on Desktop instead, even if it means getting new content with a few months’ delay.
Note that there is a console version called Phar Lap: Horse Racing Challenge, but it’s a somewhat barebones version of the game that has not gotten any further updates such as additional breeds or disciplines. Also keep an eye out for the VR Edition, scheduled for release in Q2 2025!
Still good to play
These games were released a while ago and aren’t getting new content anymore, but might be worth a look if you’ve missed them so far! I’m keeping these short because I’ve covered them in the 2022 list already
Windstorm: An Unexpected Arrival
Play this if you want an open world horse game with a narrative focus. Honestly I think this game got a ton of things right and remains severely underrated and underplayed. Full review here
Disclaimer: Developer Aesir Interactive is a current client and former employer of mine – I have not been involved in the development of this particular game though.
The Sims 3: Pets
Even though The Sims 4 now also has horses, it may be worth it going back to the previous iteration if you want to focus on breeding with a bit more advanced inheritance, if you want to be able to control horses directly, or if you simply want to profit from the huge amount of mods available for the older game.
Red Dead Redemption 2 & Red Dead Online
Unlike many others on this list, Red Dead is decidedly not a kid-friendly game. But if you’re an adult looking for a quality game experience that happens to prominently feature horses, RDR2 is by far the option with the most horse variety and horse details.
If you’re interested in more peaceful and even more horse-oriented play, make sure to check out the equestrian communities that have sprung up around Red Dead Online, such as The Rift!
Spirit: Lucky’s Big Adventure
I wasn’t a big fan of this one (full review here), but if you’re looking for something kid-friendly and story-driven, the 2021 Spirit game is not your worst choice!
The user experience is very suboptimal and the horses and their animations leave something to be desired, but I can recommend this if you’ve enjoyed Horse Club Adventures and want something more in that vein.
What to Keep an eye out for
Windstorm: The Legend of Khiimori
Fernhoof Grove
In addition to these many currently available games, there are also a handful of upcoming projects that I recommend keeping tabs on, whether that’s adding them to your Steam wishlist (where applicable) or following them on social media.
Windstorm: The Legend of Khiimori Steam Page | Discord Server | Linktree | Announcement Article
Fernhoof Grove Discord Server | Linktree | Announcement Article
Unbridled: That Horse Game Steam Page | Linktree | Discord Server
For a handful of other WIP horse game things, make sure to check out this Game Announcement Roundup and this article about Indie Horse Games
And of course, if you’ve already played everything of the above or if you are looking for more specific recommendations based on your personal criteria, I invite you to join the TMQ Communities on Facebook, Reddit or Discord to chat with other horse game fans and stay up do date with all that’s happening in our niche!
