The Pony Express

As someone who grew up on a reining ranch, I’ve always wondered about the lack of Western representation in horse games. The horse game industry, already a limited supply, rarely ever produces Western discipline game play. Where are the cutting games? Where are the roping games? Why can’t I spin and slide in a reining competition? This has always driven me crazy! I’ve even considered changing professions, and becoming a game developer to solve this (not my forte). I’ve started looking into the reasoning, and would like to share my theories with you. I also want to take a look into the most Western horse games I know.

When game developers are considering creating a horse game, it makes sense that they’d want to appeal to the largest demographic, ensuring as much success as possible. It’s true, English riding dominates the global equestrian landscape. It’s simply older, with roots dating back to the cavalry of ancient Greece and Rome. A dressage manual, “On Horsemanship” is dated circa 350 BCE. English riding has an over 2000 year lead on western. Western riding was developed in the 1800s and didn’t gain a formal competitive structure until the 1900s. English riding is practiced in nearly every country worldwide, while Western riding is primarily concentrated in the United States. However, in the last decade, there has been a lot of traction and growth for Western disciplines in Europe.

Two years ago I attended Americana 2023 in Friedrichshafen, Germany. With 47,500 attendees and 1,000 entries, it’s one of the largest rodeos to ever take place in Europe. That’s about 25% of the attendance of Cheyenne Frontier Days, the biggest rodeo in the US, and 33% of the National Finals Rodeo (NFR) in Las Vegas. At Americana there were riders from all neighboring countries competing in reining, cutting, and ranch riding. The level of enthusiasm in the crowd rivaled what I see at American shows. The riders’ horsemanship and skill was professional. These were serious riders invested heavily in the sport.

Since attending, I’ve discovered thriving Western communities tucked into rural Switzerland, France, and Germany. There are American Quarter Horse breeding programs with some of the best bloodlines for western disciplines. There are Western trainers, associations, and dedicated show circuits. There are even country festivals! Western interest is on the rise, fueled by media like Yellowstone and a growing fascination with American ranch culture.

So if there’s growing international interest in Western riding, why aren’t game developers capitalizing on it?

One possibility that I’ve considered is Pandora’s box of market demand: English riding games have always done well, so we will continue to make English riding games. There hasn’t been a western riding game with sufficient resources and budget to fairly test market demand. Without the proof of concept, perhaps publishers remain hesitant to invest.

And yet, the demand is clearly there! An observation I’ve made in most horse games I’ve played, is that there’s a lot of demand from the community to add western disciplines. In the recommendations section of most horse games, you can always find plenty of comments, “please add barrels and pole bending!” Also in the steam reviews, “NEEDS western disciplines!” This pattern repeats across platforms, from Steam and App Store reviews to Discord communities.

But perhaps developers are hesitant for good reason. The majority of western disciplines involve a lot of complex movements: rollbacks, spins, slides, and more. Are game developers intimidated by the challenge of coding and animating cow horse maneuvers? Not only do animators have to get these movements right, for many disciplines they’ll have to incorporate a small herd of steer too. Horses and other quadrupeds are notoriously difficult to animate. Their legs and movements are strange and don’t follow the same patterns as bipedal characters. Correctly animating them would likely require specialized rigging and motion capture.

Then there’s the community itself. The “E-questrian” community can be a tough group to appease. There are many passionate members who scrutinize every detail, from incorrect tack placement to gaits. Perhaps this hunt for perfection comes out of frustration of not having the enough representation in the video game market in the first place. When you’ve been waiting years for any Western game, the one that finally arrives had better get it right.

To put the current market into perspective, Star Stable Online is one of the most successful horse games in the market, largely due to its lack of competition. In 2021 they reported 640,000 active monthly users. That’s about a 7th of the size of World of Warcraft’s active monthly user stat from 2020.

So what Western games are actually out there? A handful of developers and studios have ventured into this niche market, each taking different approaches to bringing Western disciplines to life. Below are the most notable Western horse games currently available, and my thoughts on each.

Let’s Ride Silver Buckle Stables: SBS was re-released on steam in 2022 and, funny enough, it has some pretty high reviews: 92% positive of 69 reviews. I assume most people rated it with nostalgia in mind, but I believe this further proves there’s also an untapped market of gamers who enjoy barrel racing game play. LR:SBS is one of the only barrel racing and gymkhana simulators ever made. And in my expert opinion, the 2007 horse animations aren’t actually that bad – maybe that means recent horse animations haven’t progressed enough.

I’ll admit, the game does not have a lot of depth: compete in rodeo events and care for your (1) horse that you designed in the beginning. The fact that it has high reviews and active players, despite its shallow game play, is a testament to the demand for Western horse games.

Star Stable Online: I hadn’t played SSO actively in a few years, and the last time I played in 2021, the western area was basically a ghost town. I booted it up again, just to write about it here and I’m pleased to see that they have added some western focus. A lot of their content on the launcher is western themed, the bundles in the shop, and even the game loading screen. Unfortunately, these western updates are mostly just cosmetic items to buy.

Mostly SSO is a questing game; there isn’t a lot of realism. It’s very much an imagination game, since the actual gameplay falls pretty short. Players coordinate their own shows between each other in the open world, following patterns and routines. As with most MMOs, the world is static, and there’s no way to add to or personalize anything.

In SSO there’s not much depth beyond the repetition of completing quests, buying horses, and buying items. Unless you can get immersed in roleplay, there’s really not a lot to do: buy stuff, spend real money on in-game currency, buy more stuff, and do some repetitive quests.

The Sims 4 Horse Ranch: is entirely underwhelming. There’s no immersion or freedom in action: when your character rides the horse, you can set a direction for them to ride, but there’s no immediate control. You just watch your sim ride. You can have your horse practice jumping and barrels, but that just means having your character ride them in the same circles repeatedly.

A lot of the features of the horses seem to have strange proportions and the character models for most breeds only slightly vary from one another. You can breed the horses, but because they are members of the family, and families have a size limit of 7, you’ll have to keep your breeding operation scaled down.

Overall, the expansion feels much more like a “content pack.” It really doesn’t add much game play to the Sims 4 at all.

Red Dead Redemption 2: I can’t make a list of western horse games and not include Red Dead Redemption. In RDR2, riding horses is the main way to traverse the massive open world – and the graphics are incredible.

There’s no breeding. Just good ol’ catching and riding steeds in the wild, wild west. Regardless, it’s a nice way to take a virtual trail ride through a wonderfully animated world. You can get lost in beautiful views atop mountains and through canyons.

E-questrians are extremely resourceful and manage to turn games with great horse animations and beautiful worlds into the games of their dreams. In RDR2, there are many modded servers where admins have added breeding, foals, arenas with jumps, and stables. Riders role play and organize shows for every discipline. The Tack Room is one of these modded servers, where I’ve personally spent a lot of time. Beyond all the features above, community members can even buy ranches to keep their horses. The Tack Room regularly has over 100 different members playing at all times, another testament to the demand for a western sandbox game!

The Ranch of Rivershine: As much as I love The Ranch of Rivershine, I don’t consider cross country a western discipline. I appreciate the plentiful western tack options in the game, and the riding events are a lot of fun, but it’s just not western. ROR has the perfect opportunity to create western show events. Add some rodeos and gymkhanas! LET ME REIN!

Thanks for reading! I will continue doing my part to encourage and promote Western disciplines to the gaming industry!