Driftborn is a multiplayer fantasy creature racing game coming to Steam for PC. Developer Redstride Studio aims to release a playable demo in 2026, while the full game does not have a release date yet. Driftborn has been making waves primarily in the horse game spaces on TikTok and Instagram with a bunch of juicy creature animation showcases. The Haddix, a hybrid of horse and big cat, has garnered a lot of attention in particular and has caught my eye as well – even if it’s just part horse, that thing is very much getting horse animation, and I love to see it.

While we don’t yet have much gameplay footage or a proper trailer (please, people 🙏), the Driftborn team just published the above Game Overview video where they introduce their plans. I’ll also include some of their popular reels here (250k and 600k views on Tiktok respectively!) to give you an impression:

While originally planned as a Free to Play game, Driftborn is now aiming for a premium model following player feedback and concerns. Redstride Studio first started teasing development updates in late 2025, and breezed past their first 10k Wishlists on Steam within 2 months of the page going live in April – not a small feat, for a brand new studio making an ambitious multiplayer game. Speaking of that ambition, I am absolutely taking this project’s plans with a grain of salt: Unless it’s your first time visiting this website, you’ve seen me go on plenty of rants about how first time developers should keep their projects small and manageable. A 16-person team without proper funding or previously released games making a multiplayer racing game with an open world to ride around in isn’t impossible, but I very much maintain a healthy skepticism here.

Still, I can’t help but like a lot of what Redstride has shown so far: the game has a clear identity and focus, impressive art and animation, and they’re obviously already doing an excellent job of generating hype and attention for their project. It’s more than enough for me to keep a close eye on, at the very least.

To give TMQ readers additional insight, Redstride Studio’s founder and lead developer Lev Westendorp was kind enough to answer a few questions about the game via email:

The Mane Quest: As a fantasy creature racing game, Driftborn reminds me of Alicia Online. Is that a deliberate inspiration/homage? What other games or media inspire Driftborn's gameplay?

Redstride Studios: Alicia Online is definitely one of the inspirations behind Driftborn, especially in the sense of fast creature racing, building a connection with your mount, and making movement itself feel enjoyable rather than simply being a way to get from place to place. We do not see Driftborn as a remake or a replacement for Alicia, though. It is more of a respectful spiritual inspiration: taking some of the feelings that made those games memorable and building something with our own world, creatures, systems, and identity.

Red Dead Redemption 2 has also been a major gameplay reference for us, particularly in the sense of weight, momentum, and indirect control. We want creatures to feel alive and powerful rather than instantly snapping in whatever direction the player presses. Real animal movement, equestrian sports, and creature animation are all important references too. The goal is for movement to feel expressive and satisfying whether you are calmly exploring, racing at full speed, drifting through a corner, or jumping terrain.

TMQ: Your creatures are not strictly speaking "horses", but hybrids that include equine characteristics. Do you feel like that choice is at all limiting in showing your game to horse game fans, or are the creatures (Haddix in particular) "horse enough" to capture that audience? Anything else you'd like to add about your inspiration and goals in creature design?

RS: I actually see it as one of Driftborn’s strengths. We absolutely want to appeal to horse game fans, because a lot of the things people love about horses are still central to the experience: the movement, the bond with your creature, racing, coats, individuality, and the feeling of raising or building a connection with an animal-like companion. At the same time, making them hybrids gives us room to create creatures with stronger silhouettes, more unusual movement, and their own lore. Haddix has a lot of equine readability in its body language and locomotion, but it also has feline and more fantastical traits that make it feel like its own species rather than “a horse with a different skin.” Kryne follows a similar philosophy in a very different direction.

Our main goal is that every creature feels believable within the world while still being distinctive enough that players can immediately recognize it from a distance. We want players to form attachments to them as creatures in their own right, not just as mounts.

3) From what I've seen, you've mostly gathered attention through showing off creature design, animation, coats and movement. How far along is the gameplay, in the meantime? What is playable at this stage?

RS: The visual side has naturally been the easiest part to show publicly, but gameplay is actively being built alongside it. At this stage, we have a playable ground-creature foundation centred around Haddix, including multiple movement gaits, weightier steering, drifting, jumping, swimming, camera behaviour, terrain response, and a working racing foundation. The current racing prototype includes race starts and countdowns, checkpoint progression, lap counting, wrong-way detection, spline-based track progress, timers, placements, and a basic HUD. We are also keeping the underlying systems structured for multiplayer from the beginning, rather than treating multiplayer as something to bolt on later.

It is still a work in progress rather than a finished game, of course. A lot of the current work is about taking those working systems and polishing them into something that feels cohesive, responsive, and reliable enough for players to experience firsthand. We want to make sure that these systems are polished enough before we share them as many people just scrolling past will judge on the first few seconds you show off. If that is a very prototype, janky system, (new) players will be put off. This is a deliberate decision we made.

4) And as a follow up, which features can players expect to try in the demo later this year?

RS: The current goal for the (alpha) demo is a focused vertical slice rather than a huge preview of every planned system. Players should be able to experience the core of what Driftborn is meant to feel like: moving through the world as a creature, learning its handling, racing, drifting, jumping, and seeing how the creature responds to terrain.

The planned content currently includes:

Playable creature(s): currently Haddix is the main focus
One or more race tracks and race activities – cannot say whether this will be multiplayer or NPC races yet
Creature movement systems including gaits, drifting, jumping, and swimming
Coat/customisation preview, if polished enough

We are still locking the exact scope based on what can be brought to a proper level of quality in time. We would rather release a smaller demo that clearly shows what makes Driftborn special than promise a large amount of content that is not ready yet. Longer-term systems such as breeding, larger exploration areas, and progression are part of the broader vision, but we do not want to over promise them for the first demo.

5) I noticed this showcase of terrain IK on your socials, and it looks really good! I see a lot of games (even AAA titles) mess up equine leg behavior because IK causes the forelegs to bend and the horse to stand on crooked legs (huge pet peeve of mine). Can you share anything about how you achieved that behavior? Was this a complicated process, or would you say it's actually not that hard if you know what the end result should look like? Any tips for other devs who want horse legs to play nice with Inverse Kinematics?

RS: Thank you! That is honestly one of those details we are very picky about too. Crooked or unnaturally bending legs can immediately break the illusion, especially on a creature with a horse-like silhouette.

The biggest lesson has been that good IK is less about finding one magic setting and more about making sure every layer is doing the right job. We use a terrain-aware IK setup that lets the feet react to the ground, but we keep actual gameplay movement and collision separate from the visual IK. The creature’s capsule and movement system still handle the real movement, while the IK makes the mesh look like it is responding naturally to slopes and uneven terrain. That also keeps the setup much safer for multiplayer. We were also lucky to get help from a fellow developer (Codehawk64) to help us set up the IK better. To this date it's still not 100% polished but we're 90% there of what we would like the final result to be.

My biggest tip for other developers would be to start simple: get one leg working correctly on flat ground, then test slopes, then add body reaction, then add the other legs. Also, do not try to solve bad turning poses with self-collision physics. It is usually better to improve the chest rotation, foot targets, or animation pose than to make the legs physically fight each other at runtime.

Driftborn is announced for Steam on PC and you can add it to your wishlist here. If you’d like to further support Redstride Studio and their development, check out their Patreon. Further links and infos can be found on the studio’s website