2026 may be year of the horse, but 2025 certainly gave it a good go with the amount of horse-related games, expansions, and updates we've had
I'll just go ahead and say it—it's been a huge year for horse girls. Whether you were the type of kid who asked your parents for a pony for Christmas each year, the type to head down to your local riding school each weekend to muck out, or you just had stacks of books with pretty horse pictures in, let's all take a moment to be honest and say there's a horse girl in each of us. 2025 has tried, and in most cases succeeded, to coax this inner demon out in every which way it possibly can. And, even as someone who has literally never sat atop a horse, I have no shame in admitting that I was the first to fall.
However, if you haven't noticed your gaming library or day-to-day life becoming infected with these powerful beasts, it's probably because you haven't realised just how significant horses have been. Because I'm not talking about the games that are basically ranch simulators for the most part. Although they have had their time in the spotlight, with the full launch of The Ranch of Rivershine, Barbie Horse Trails, and Sound of Horses, it's more so a plethora of updates and expansions that have put a particular emphasis on horses, which has led me to believe that 2025 has been the year of the horse girl.
However, it's impossible to even begin dissecting the year without spotlighting the first notable horse-related launch this year—the release of Umamusume: Pretty Derby on PC. Even though the horse girl racing gacha game rolled out in Japan in 2021, it's safe to say that the internet became obsessed with watching its characters run around a track in June. For about a month, not a day went past that some video of Rice Shower or, most importantly, Haru Urara, didn't grace my social media feed. No, that's not a complaint either.
The impact of the launch of this game even led players to stray from their screens and visit the racehorses Umamusume's cast is based on in real life, too. In fact, so many people wanted to send the real life Haru Urara the most expensive grass available on the donation website, the entire thing crashed. It's safe to say that Umamusume: Pretty Derby was one of those games no one quite expected to get as big as it did, but it certainly made its mark.
Outside of full game releases, Minecraft showed its horses some love, too. It took a while, but the Chase the Skies drop in summer let us craft saddles for the first time, and the Mounts of Mayhem drop from December finally gave horses the ability to swim while being ridden. Which means there's no need to craft an inventory of leads each time you plan on dragging your poor horse through a body of water. Or, even worse, having to slowly push them across an ocean yourself. This isn't the only new feature for these four-legged friends, either.
Netherite armour was added in the same update, giving the mount far more protection to any mounts that are your chosen companion for longer adventures. Plus, zombie horses also finally made their way into survival mode after being added in a snapshot in 2013. Though, much like their aggressive mob counterparts, they do combust into flames in the daylight, so they might not be as practical as a standard horse, but are a nice addition nonetheless.
One of the most significant expansions, however, was the addition of the Wishblossom Ranch DLC to Disney Dreamlight Valley. This might as well fall under my list of ranch simulator games since it's so in-depth when it comes to unravelling the story of how the ranch came to ruin, but it's not the ranch side of things I want to talk about. It's the fact that horses are the best thing Disney Dreamlight Valley could've added, and now they're in the game, I can't imagine a world where they're not.
Having a horse in Disney Dreamlight Valley has drastically improved valley life. Not only is it incredibly convenient to have a mount which allows you to get around a lot faster, meaning you don't have to eat your weight in meals to boost your stamina bar enough to be able to glide temporarily. But the skills each horse unlocks as you improve your bond with them mean you don't have to worry about your stamina at all.
When you're completing a task like mining or farming on the back of a horse, your stamina won't slowly go down. Which means you don't need to rush back to your house or sit down to restore it. You can go about your valley without any unnecessary roadblocks, so quests get completely faster, resources gathered quicker, and your inventory stays filled with only the important stuff rather than a bunch of meals you quickly cooked for quick stamina regeneration.
Horses have entertained me in a multitude of ways this year, which I really didn't expect to be my 2025 takeaway, but here we are. Although I'm sad our horse era might be coming to a close, I'm keen to see if there are any other animal trends coming for 2026. Hopefully, it's something less practical but more entertaining, like a raccoon or a hyrax. Though saying that, I don't know if they'd make a good anime gacha game.