games

Why horses are so hard for video games to get right

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If a horse is in a video game, that means someone busted their butt to get it there. Horses are WEIRD — they’re massive animals with weird bendy joints and many, many gaits. It’s no wonder why so many games choose to simply treat them as transportation. Even so, some games go the extra mile to make horses unique and meaningful to the gameplay — and they benefit from it massively. Here’s why horses are so difficult to get into games, and what we’re missing out on when horses aren’t given their due.

Check out Alice’s website: https://www.themanequest.com/

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49 comments

@polygon September 28, 2024 - 5:15 am
Learning more about horse anatomy and how their legs work actually made me anti-horse so I hope you enjoyed this final glimpse into how horses work in video games. - Simone
@littleinchybit September 28, 2024 - 5:15 am
There is a greate animation of Sunny in Maretime Bay Adventure
@sstone6417 September 28, 2024 - 5:15 am
I rarely use horses because I find them unwieldy and hard to control.
@probsnooneyouknowtbh3712 September 28, 2024 - 5:15 am
I love Agro so much. Even when her legs go all bendy. If you don't love her at her worst you don't deserve her at her best 😤
@julihuman September 28, 2024 - 5:15 am
yes and Barbie Horse Adventures, i got addicted to eating sugar cubes for that
@notmyname9270 September 28, 2024 - 5:15 am
So THATS why we won't get SBR
@lrso5152 September 28, 2024 - 5:15 am
It's such a shame that you featured footage from Red Dead, but didn't talk about it any.
@shortyduapp September 28, 2024 - 5:15 am
The horse in Ghost of Tsushima is one of the "fast food menu" picks, but the game integrates into the story enough that when you lose it it really hurts.
@godofchaos6610 September 28, 2024 - 5:15 am
theres another zelda game that did well with horses, the model is a little clunky and blocky but i still am inlove with epona
check out Legend Of Zelda: Twilight Princess, or do ocarina of time, thats a good one too even though the horse has less significance and a lesser quality model.
@vegethiagoddess8268 September 28, 2024 - 5:15 am
One of my favourite things in breath of the wild is that if you have link whistle the horse will run to you
@enmutami9430 September 28, 2024 - 5:15 am
I'm surprised Star Stable wasn't mentioned in this video
@lilwolfygaming3313 September 28, 2024 - 5:15 am
if horses are painful to rig and animate and model then imagine all the pain star stable went through
@Skypticdragon22 September 28, 2024 - 5:15 am
Still to this day, horses are one of hardest animals to animate.
@PinkWytchBytch September 28, 2024 - 5:15 am
Games like BOTW, Elden Ring and Shadow of the Colossus, those games really struck me as my personal favorites. Especially Shadow of the Colossus. Even RD2. I love that feeling of your horse being your companion throughout the virtual world, they’re there WITH you not just FOR you
@fuzzygoldfish September 28, 2024 - 5:15 am
A big part of horses for me is the delay between command and response. Even if the animations in Assassin's Creed weren't a mess, that instant response keeps the horse from feeling like a character in its own right and makes it just feel like a vehicle that runs on grass.

Shadow of the Colossus was the first game that really nailed that feeling for me; before then I'd pretty much always skipped horses if they were optional, but after that game I saw the value of them as a companion. BoTW does this very well; Witcher has less of a delay but the audible commands and (very useful) tendency of the horse to follow trails really added character to Roach.
@zelvanyan September 28, 2024 - 5:15 am
i always knew something was terribly off with these video game horses lol. video game horses just never really move like movie horses do, trying to play a video game with horses in it after watching a movie like the kingdom of heaven and after watching a movie like the 1940 mark of Zorro is an absolute nightmare. The only video game that i can say comes close to movie horses is red dead redemption 2. i hope these other games improve on what RDR2 did with their horses.
@sparklestorm1236 September 28, 2024 - 5:15 am
My horse in breath of the wild is named Gregory and I didn’t know at the time so I named him a meme how attached I would begin to be to this horse. I would stop him at any enemy camps so he wouldn’t die and never used him in combat. When he was involved in the final battle it was like it came full circle and my boy got to see me beat Gannon and help me do it. I love him.
@mastermarkus5307 September 28, 2024 - 5:15 am
I'm thinking that the "excuse" for Torrent's legs being like that could have to do with him being goat-like, as they seem to bend more at the knee when climbing, but it does seem kind of like the devs didn't necessarily think of how you could effectively combine these animals anatomically.
@EratoTiaTuatha September 28, 2024 - 5:15 am
Why aren't we talking about Horizon Zero Dawn though? Sure, the "horses" are robots, but that game has hands down the best riding model I've experienced, the controls are the right amount of loose to feel like you're riding an animal and not just a "make me go fast" box (without being frustratingly floaty!), the animations convey weight and are perfectly springy, like there's both weight and momentum as well as energy and speed. There's still not a single game out there that perfectly solves the issue of putting horses on very uneven ground, either the front legs are going to bend or the whole horse will end up upright, but I've seen relatively very little of that in Horizon. It helps that the "horse" will often react to those situations by actually stepping into a more natural position. Plus, they might be made of wires, but their design reflects horse anatomy surprisingly well!
@BiyondoBāsudei September 28, 2024 - 5:15 am
I’m disappointed more people are talking about BOTW in the comments instead of RDR2’s horses.
@hannah4588 September 28, 2024 - 5:15 am
As someone who loves forming deep bonds with my horses in video games, the horses randomly changing whenever you travel to another part of the map is one of the things I disliked the most about AC3.
@vivekmaru2557 September 28, 2024 - 5:15 am
did they just forgot about rdr1 and rdr2 no way
@dharma_art September 28, 2024 - 5:15 am
I had a go at animating the tölt, it was definitely way harder than animating a galloping horse 😅 Maybe because it's such a smooth gait it's hard to get it looking natural.
@a-ramenartist9734 September 28, 2024 - 5:15 am
of course (a horse)
@LadyBrightcynder September 28, 2024 - 5:15 am
Video game equines are actually one of the things that inspired me to become an animator - because I kept getting annoyed at how Zebstrika's shoulders were animated in Pokémon. XD
@diegobrando7858 September 28, 2024 - 5:15 am
another reason we cant have a STEEL BALL RUN anime
@Langle7187 September 28, 2024 - 5:15 am
What about the horse in ghost of Tsushima I cried when my horse died
@Xaries82 September 28, 2024 - 5:15 am
horse trot,women thot..
@mikehawk9281 September 28, 2024 - 5:15 am
Where is unraveled
@KhanaHatake September 28, 2024 - 5:15 am
One of my favorite "little details" in BotW is that you can *feed your horse treats*. I always give my horse an apple before I board them, for a job well done!
@blackjack1923 September 28, 2024 - 5:15 am
I am so mad they did not talk about rdr2 horses more
@kingofspadesjack572 September 28, 2024 - 5:15 am
Shadow of the colossus as early as ps2 eraaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!!!!!!!
@easytomove September 28, 2024 - 5:15 am
Steel Ball Run gonna be masterpiece 😝
@frustis September 28, 2024 - 5:15 am
5+ years later, Breath of the Wild still rocking with new details
@nutmeg9593 September 28, 2024 - 5:15 am
Once in Red Dead redemption 2 I accidentally killed a guy while trying to steal his horse. Ended up having to run away and lose the horse. Later in the game I went to untie my long time horse only to run into the former horse again. He remembered me and what I had done and basically killed me. As an equestrian the whole episode destroyed me emotionally but at the same time, I appreciated the insane level of detail.
@MM-op6ti September 28, 2024 - 5:15 am
You just know…
@joelcolegrove September 28, 2024 - 5:15 am
Tell me about Fire Emblem horses. Now.
@laurakagamine4161 September 28, 2024 - 5:15 am
The only thing I hate about BotW horses is that you can only register a limited amount of them ToT xd
@tanukii69 September 28, 2024 - 5:15 am
yoshiii!!!
@thomasgarrison2100 September 28, 2024 - 5:15 am
Amazing. Such a great video! :) thank you for puting in the time and effort to share that with us.
@cybergimpmonkey September 28, 2024 - 5:15 am
#hireahorsegirl
@s.zapata7285 September 28, 2024 - 5:15 am
Witcher III my beloved but also the horse riding is wack af like,,, I don't ride horses but im entirely sure geralt is riding roach wrong
@nova0000 September 28, 2024 - 5:15 am
Imagine animating Sleipner...
@draxiss1577 September 28, 2024 - 5:15 am
I THOUGHT TORRENT WAS A GOAT
@mickeynotmouse September 28, 2024 - 5:15 am
Really makes you FEEL like a horse
@MulinaTheAngelWolf September 28, 2024 - 5:15 am
wait heck I was planning to get that game :o
@char1211 September 28, 2024 - 5:15 am
ELDEN RING SPOILER AT 10:25
Skip to 11:37 if you want to avoid it!!

I also think 8:42 might be a spoiler for Shadow of the Colossus but I've never played that game myself so I'm not sure. Skip to 8:54 if you don't want to risk it
@driftingdruid September 28, 2024 - 5:15 am
patiently awaiting an equine update for Stardew Valley, so that the horse doesn't feel like a bike that auto-parks itself at home every night....
@justinocanovasmorton9193 September 28, 2024 - 5:15 am
No moment in gaming ever affected me more than when my horse died in Red Dead Redemtion 2.... Never got over it... so true

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