Hi, I’m Simone de Rochefort, and I’m a Horse Girl.
For some people, video game horses fade into the background, just another 3D asset on a
polygonal plane…
But they SHOULDN’T.
When there’s a horse in a video game, it means someone busted their butt to get it
there.
And that's because horses are weird.
Tricky.
Complex.
And even if you don’t care about horses I’m here to convince you that video games
are ENRICHED and ENLIVENED when they give horses their due.
But why are horses so complicated?
That's an easy answer.
They're abominations of nature that walk on their fingernails.
Let’s talk about horse animation.
- Hi, my name is Alice.
I'm a game designer and game producer and writer from Zurich, Switzerland.
- Right now Alice is working on a ranch sim called Horse Tales - Emerald Valley Ranch
— but more on that later.
- [Alice] …for the past three years, I've started writing about horse games as a hobby.
… And I do that on my website, The Mane Quest.
- [Simone] On The Mane Quest, Alice pays special attention to horse movement.
- [Alice] First of all, I do think it's worth noting that quadrupeds are just very difficult to animate, period.
And I think that's something that every animator and game dev learns early on, like, do not
do more legs than you absolutely need – and two is enough!
A two-legged creature…
it’s mostly going to be this foot, and then this foot.
Whereas, as soon as you have — can I do this with my hand?
As soon as you have more legs, you have a lot of options.
And quadrupeds have different gaits.
So like, a horse has a four beat walk, which is what I just tried to do but I’m not coordinated
enough with my hand.
— they have a trot, which is like, parallel legs.
Okay, now, I can't do this with my hand –
- [laughing] Alice is trying to show you something that photographers were obsessed with figuring
out in 1878: what those legs do?
A walking horse moves all four feet one after the other.
In its second fastest gait, the trot, the horse moves its legs in diagonal pairs.
In a gallop, all four feet leave the ground, and each step means the horse’s massive
weight is supported by a single hoof.
Or hoof?
Hoof?
Hoof.
These aren’t the only three gaits, but they are the three that come naturally to all horses.
(And honestly, if somebody wants to try animating the tölt, I think they get a medal just for
the attempt.)
- [Alice] It just makes it more complicated. You need to put more thought into 'when does which leg does what?'
So yeah, that's just the inherent difficulty in animating quadrupeds.
- [Simone] Games tackle these gaits with varying degrees of success.
In Assassin’s Creed Valhalla the gaits are all there, but the gallop looks choppy, as
if the horse is being fast-forwarded.
This choppiness happens in transitions between gaits as well.
The horse walks if you nudge the thumbstick, and starts to gallop when you press it all
the way.
But there’s a transition animation that speeds up the walk in a way that ends up looking
really weird.
Nature does not condone it!
What’s being prioritized here is speed, because the horse is just your transportation.
So basically any pressure on the joystick throws you directly into the fastest gait.
It was honestly kind of hard to get footage of the walk, because the game is so adamant
that if you’re moving forward, you MUST want to gallop.
Compare that with Breath of the Wild.
Here the gallop is still really fast but the animation captures that smooth-as-water look
of a horse running full tilt.
Transitions between gaits are crisp and clean, done with a single tap of a button, so you’re
never forced to gallop.
Zelda also sells the feeling better with wind lines when you sprint.
And that feeling is really important!
There’s something compelling about the way a real horse moves.
They're powerful, but weightless.
Enormous… but bouncy! [snorting cut off by censorship beep]
And horses move like that… because of how they’re built.
- [Alice] … they're kind of wack creatures regarding how they move, in terms
of like, you know, the whole walking on their fingernails business.
- [Simone] A horse is so heavy, and its legs so slender, that they literally should not be able to
move as fast as they do.
- [Alice] A horse's legs has very, very few muscles on it, or like their lower legs do not have
muscles on them.
… So like basically, it's a system of tension and release.
- [Simone] But they can move this fast because of their crazy tendons.
These behave like...
- [Various male British narrators from Inside Nature's Giants doc] Elastic ... like a pogo stick...
...like a rubber band... 30 times better than a steel spring...
...stretching to allow the joint to drop, but preventing it from collapsing...
- [Simone] Alice linked me to a really cool documentary about horse musculature which IS available
on YouTube, but fair warning, they do dissect a whole horse in it.
And it’s a lot.
To see.
You see... you see all of it.
You see EVERYTHING.
And I will never forget it.
Details like this bending in the fetlock don’t necessarily make it into games.
Like Alice said, this is wack, and developers might play fast and loose with the way that
horses distribute their weight and bend their joints.
- [Alice] They have this, like, very springy — very springy step where the
joints lower and rise with every step, and that's part of what I find so fascinating about horse movement.
You know, when you make a simple humanoid animation, you can get away with like, having
one joint in the hand or maybe even like having a walk like this and having stiff hands.
But for a horse, for the movement to look good … you'll have to kind of consider every one
of these joints for it to actually, actually look good … because otherwise you're gonna have some weirdness in it.
- [Simone] A prime example of this is in Elden Ring, where Torrent the Horse is one of Alice’s
pet peeves.
Torrent — who is, to be clear, a magical double-jumping horse with horns, but bear
with me — uses his knees in impossible ways.
When you’re climbing a hill, Torrent walks on, and supports his weight with, completely
bent knees.
But a real horse physically could not do this.
Their legs would explode.
- [Alice] It's as if, like, imagine a human character just constantly walking in a squat.
For a human, that's at least possible.
For a horse, it is not.
And even for a human, it would look very weird.
- [Simone] For some people, that’s not a dealbreaker.
I honestly didn’t notice until I read Alice’s very thorough article.
And now my life is ruined!
For others, horse quality is important from the get-go.
And that can extend beyond animation and into treating the horse as an integral
part of the narrative — not just a car with legs.
A meat motorcycle.
Meatercycle.
- [Alice] Assassin's Creed 3 had — I'm not sure if it was a bug or if it was a feature or if just nobody cared…
But when you picked a horse somewhere, and then you rode into a different area, like into a city, or out of
a city to a different region...
After the loading screen, your horse would sometimes have a different color.
You know, it's not awful, but it's just such a detail where I'm like, I explicitly do not feel seen.
(laughing)
- [Simone] We like making choices in games: and that's why something as seemingly minor as organizing your inventory,
putting on a special hat… choosing a pretty horse… helps us feel engaged.
That’s why it’s a missed opportunity when horses aren’t treated as individuals, at
least a little bit.
Red Dead Redemption 2, of course, nails this.
There are 19 different horse breeds with variations in speed, agility, and temperament
— combined with tons of different colors, and the ability to give the horse a name
and a makeover!!!
I have to give another shout-out here to Breath of the Wild.
The horses only have one body type —but some are milder-tempered and easy to catch,
while others give you attitude!
But my favorite thing about them is that the horses have head-tracking.
So your horse, that you chose, will actually follow you with its gaze when you move around.
All of this makes the horse feel just a little more alive, and your choice to tame it a little
more meaningful.
And that’s what separates a good game mechanic from a rote one.
It’s also part of why Alice maintains that even people who don’t care about horses
are missing out when games don’t do them justice.
- [Alice] And one huge component of that is, it's just narrative.
Like, we have a few games where horses are treated as characters.
And to me personally, those games profit enormously from it.
… You have the example of Shadow of the Colossus. Like, imagine Shadow of the Colossus, if you just had a horse at every corner, and
you could just pick up a new horse as you went.
Like, that would have ruined so much of the emotional impact of that game.
- [Simone] Let me tell you about Feet.
When I first played Breath of the Wild, I got stuck in the canyon between the Tabantha
Frontier and Hyrule Ridge.
I didn’t have enough stamina to climb out, and the moblins were kicking my ass because
I was underleved.
But those moblins… were on horseback.
I caught one and went on a desperate gallop down the canyon, and like so many amazing
moments in Breath of the Wild, it felt like I was writing my own adventure story.
When I finally escaped and found an inn, I proudly adopted my horse and named him Feet,
since that’s what he used to save me.
You don’t get memorable experiences like that with the horses in, for example, Assassin’s
Creed Odyssey.
I love that game, but it fails the horse meaningfulness test.
Picking your horse is like ordering off a fast food menu and it has no bearing on the
rest of the game’s story.
Breath of the Wild could have easily gone that same route, but the developers went the
extra mile to create the taming mechanic which is memorable and fun.
The game that Alice is making now is a proper horse game, not just a game with horses in
it.
Horse Tales - Emerald Valley Ranch also asks players to bond with their horses — not
just ride them.
Alice says the horses have different stats and personality traits, and that you can tame and
train them as you restore your family ranch’s faded glory.
It’s headed for the Nintendo Switch in winter 2022!
But even the things that I’ve been harping on as flaws can still end up being really charming!
For example, Alice, along with the rest of the world, was captivated by Leonard in Elden
Ring: the wizened, depressing horse of General Radahn.
Radahn is too huge to ride his beloved horse, so he learned gravity magic to keep himself
from crushing Leonard.
Sort of.
- [Alice] It’s a really weird kind of adorable to me, where it's just like...
... you know, at the same time I see that his horse also has these wack-ass bendy legs, which
is one of those issues that I talked about before where it's just like, it walks
like, hunched — ehh!! ehh!!
And at the same time it's just super hilarious to have this buff-ass, threatening, killing
machine of a person ... cursed man, whatever. Ride this tiny steed!!
- [Simone] Even though Leonard’s animation is weird, he’s got personality!
He’s got emotional weight!
He's got an actual, physical weight, sitting on his back,
And it's General Radahn, who is my boyfriend!
Rest in peace.
That’s the kind of horse that I could do with more of: one that breaks the rules, but
in the right way.
Horses don’t just make it faster to get from one place to another.
They’re our companions, and a good horse…
can make a greater game.
[Sort of rockin' little plunky guitar song, with a rhythm like you're riding down the road at a clip]