The people who made the game called ‘Horses,’ a company named Santa Ragione, have spoken up about what an executive from Epic Games Store said. They claim this executive made statements that were just plain wrong about what’s in their game.
Santa Ragione put out a statement over the weekend. They said it’s not true that Epic Games Store ‘loves’ their company. They even said that Epic basically stopped talking to them, like they ‘ghosted’ them, when Epic pulled their scary game from the store late last year.
You might remember that Santa Ragione’s game, ‘Horses,’ was in the news a lot before it even came out. First, the Steam store wouldn’t sell it. Then, right before it was supposed to be released, Epic Games Store also stopped it from being sold. All of this put the game makers in a tough spot. The boss of Santa Ragione, Pietro Righi Riva, even told Eurogamer that his company might have to close down if ‘Horses’ didn’t sell well.
Santa Ragione said that Epic told them just 24 hours before ‘Horses’ was supposed to come out that they wouldn’t sell the game anymore. Epic said their review found the game broke their rules about what kind of content they allow. Epic’s message specifically mentioned rules about ‘bad content’ and ‘mean or hurtful content.’ They said ‘Horses’ went against rules that stop games from showing ‘abuse and animal abuse’ or having ‘clear or often scenes of sexual behavior’ that aren’t properly marked or rated for age.
On that last point, Epic said they filled out a special survey about the game’s content and it got an ‘Adult Only’ (AO) rating. Epic doesn’t sell games with an AO rating in their store.
But earlier this week, Steve Allison, a big boss at Epic, told a news outlet called Game File in an interview, “We love [Santa Ragione] [… but the company’s] answers were just different than… what some of our reviewers thought after playing the game.”
Stephen Totilo from Game File later explained on social media, “We didn’t have much time to talk about this, but it seems like when Steam banned the game, it made Epic take another look at its rating. Usually, games get their ratings by the makers filling out a form themselves.”
Epic made provably incorrect statements about the game’s content, refused to provide details supporting their claims, and has not shared their claimed AO IARC certificate, which normally includes a link for the developer to appeal. They do not ‘love that studio’, they have effectively ghosted us
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— Santa Ragione (@santaragione.com) February 7, 2026 at 11:44 AM
In response, the game makers said, “Epic said things about the game’s content that were clearly wrong. They wouldn’t tell us more details to back up what they said, and they haven’t shown us the ‘Adult Only’ rating certificate they claim to have, which usually has a way for the game maker to argue against it.” They added, “They don’t ‘love that company,’ they just stopped talking to us.”
The company also said, “You can tell the game doesn’t deserve an ‘Adult Only’ rating by watching the full play-throughs that are easy to find on YouTube and Twitch, and also because it’s being sold on the Humble Store.”
Even with all the trouble selling ‘Horses,’ Santa Ragione has made enough money to pay back the loans they took out to finish making the game. They also paid what they owed to Andrea Lucco Borlera, the person who created ‘Horses.’
