Must-Read: Polygon Analyzes Assassin's Creed Horses with an Expert of Equine History
Polygon writer Simone de Rochefort and Horse Historian Professor Donna Landry take a close look at the horses in the Assassin’s Creed games: The recent titles Origins, Odyssey and Valhalla all use the same horse model regardless of their vastly different settings and cultural context.
De Rochefort and Landry draw comparisons between this horse type and modern breeds, and go through the games’ Viking, Ancient Egypt and Ancient Greece settings to discuss how horses in those regions and time periods might have looked.
I absolutely love this deep dive and am incredibly happy that for once, I am not alone in reporting on video game horse accuracy. The article is an absolute must-read for TMQ fans, horse history enthusiasts and equestrian gamers. Go read it, and let Polygon know if analytical horse content is something you want to see more of!
Click right here: Polygon: A horse expert weighs in on the Assassin’s Creed pony debate (that we started)
Disney Dreamlight Valley is an adventure life-sim featuring lots of classic and modern Disney characters all the way from Mickey Mouse to Moana. Needless to say that when its publisher Gameloft reached out to me before gamescom with a request to show me something relevant to my interests at the event, I was stoked to take an exclusive look.
Gather up horse game fans, it is time for another announcement roundup. This is where I do a quick rundown of upcoming and recently released games that I want to let you all know about, but don’t have capacity for deep dives and dedicated articles for.
Barbie Horse Adventures fans rejoice! There’s going to be a brand new Barbie horse game published by Outright Games and developed by PHL Collective. Mattel announced that Barbie Horse Trails will come to Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and PC (Steam) on October 10th 2025.
Following the announcement of Equinox: Homecoming, Harvey Randall at PC Gamer began to wonder why someone would make a game like that and what is up with the horse game niche in general. Naturally, I was happy to provide some insight.
How do horses live? What does a stable look like? Splendid barn aesthetics are nice to have for humans, but what horses really need are the so-called three Fs: Friends, Forage and Freedom. Today I want to have a look at what meeting those needs looks like and how horse-focused media can play an important role in education and normalization when it comes to the question of “What should a cool, fancy, high quality stable look like?”
I was invited to a brand new podcast called You Are Error, hosted by games journalist Nathan Grayson for Aftermath. Nathan and I talked about some of the many ways in which mainstream video games keep dropping the ball when it comes to including horses and why I’m sure that the horse game audience is bigger than anyone realizes and has a lot of potential.
I was a speaker at Devcom 2024 in Cologne, giving a presentation on my horse game work. The recorded talk is now available on YouTube!
Roly-Pony is a Suika style puzzle game that you can play in your browser for free on itch.io. It was developed by two TMQ Community members. In true Tiny Horse Game Spirit, the two creators got together for about two weeks to create, finish and release Roly-Pony to the community.