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Gather ’round, horse gamers. A long-awaited realistic horse courier and survival sim has just hit early access and I think The Legend of Khiimori might make waves. After my first six hours playing I felt that someone had finally threaded the needle between survival game and horse girl sim, but there are some caveats on my enthusiasm.
I don’t blame anyone for feeling skittish, the $30 price tag isn’t exactly a steal for an early access game and yes, this one really is early access still. I’ll detail below as many horse game features as possible that I know are important to horse game enthusiasts, and some warnings about the early access state so you can decide whether to saddle up or hold your horses.
The Legend of Khiimori features
What kind of sim is Legend of Khiimori?
The Legend of Khiimori is a lite survival sim with an emphasis on horse management and exploration. You’ll spend a lot of time riding between map locations to complete delivery quests while plotting a route that lets you feed your horse and avoid dangers like predators or weather.
Feature | Included? | How it works |
|---|---|---|
Survival | ✅ | Manage food, water, mood, health, and stamina meters for your horse or else it faints |
Horse / character customization | ⚠️ | Still in development, but planned |
Riding simulation | ✅ | Walk, trot, canter, and gallop to manage stamina on different terrain conditions |
Riding styles | ❌ | There are not different riding styles like English or Western because of the historical Mongolian setting |
Horse care | ✅ | No minigames, but press a button to pet, brush, or check your horse’s hooves to fill its mood meter |
Horse breeds | ✅ | Mongolian, Limousin, Akhal‑Teke, Ferghana, with more planned later |
Taming | ⚠️ | In development, not implemented, so don’t be fooled by the “tame” prompt on wild horses |
Breeding | ✅ | Choose owned horses to breed with foals inheriting stats and, traits, and attempt to control color genetics by “blessing” certain genes |
Stable management | ✅ | Minimal management elements, but you can swap horses at a stable manager |
Racing | ⚠️ | Still in development, but planned |
Day/night and weather | ✅ | There is a day/night cycle but you are not required to sleep. There are rain and snow storms and high winds |
Fast travel | ❌ | Nope! You can only travel as fast as your horse |
Combat | ✅ | Use a bow or throwable repellants against predators or aggressive spirits |
Peaceful mode | ⚠️ | Still in development, but planned |
Crafting | ✅ | Minor crafting elements for horse tonics and foods by gathering resources in the open world |
Multiplayer | ❌ | Singleplayer only and multiplayer is not planned |
My favorite feature is the route planning where you place a bunch of markers on the map that show up like waypoints as you ride. It makes the process of exploring and choosing whether I want to avoid certain terrain, or stick to roads, or detour to pass by a river feel so detailed and really keeps me in the headspace of riding as my top priority.
What Khiimori lacks is the full main story quest that should make it feel like a more complete experience at its full launch. That, and some visual polish and bug fixing as mentioned below.
The Legend of Khiimori early access state
How ‘early’ access is it?
As of launch on March 3, The Legend of Khiimori definitely has some rough edges. It feels like a bit of a gamble: you’ll probably have a mostly okay time unless you’re unlucky and have a ton of issues. In my first five hours I’ve hit a progress-blocking quest bug and the game auto saves so frequently (a real monkey’s paw) that I can’t load a save prior to accepting the quest.
Importantly, the main story of the game is not implemented yet so it’s mostly some early introduction story quests and then free-roaming delivery quests. Khiimori also has some visual awkwardness like weird character facial animations. The lighting is beautiful most of the time, but dawn and dusk as the light is changing appear weirdly flat.
Legend of Khiimori graphics settings
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Speaking of being beautiful most of the time, pay attention to the Khiimori system requirements on its Steam page before you decide to buy. Above is a comparison between the visual quality settings.
There’s a free “Legend of Khiimori System Check” download on its Steam page that will tell you whether all the components of your system meet the spec requirements.
Should you get The Legend of Khimori in early access?
Is The Legend of Khiimori worth it?
🐴 If you’re a horse enthusiast gamer: For realistic horses and open world riding that feels great (especially with the rumble features in a controller) this is the most beautiful choice since Red Dead Redemption 2. Khiimori isn’t just a game that includes horses; it’s all about riding, tending, breeding, and training your majestic pals. In particular, the details involved in breeding different foal traits and colors with dominant/recessive genes is going to be popular. Take note of all the caveats above, but if you’re inclined to buy a game to support the cause of horse games at large, you could do worse than Khiimori.
🌼 If you’re a cozy gamer: Khiimori has serious potential as a cozy game, but you may want to wait until it’s had a few key updates before you try it. Depending on what kind of PC you play on, the system requirements may mean you wind up playing at a lower visual quality, though I did feel that the medium setting was still quite pretty. If you’re staunchly anti-combat, you’ll definitely want to wait until that “peaceful mode” gets added so you don’t feel pressured by the bears and wolves out on the steppe.
⛏️ If you’re a survival game player: You might need to adjust your expectations for Khiimori. There isn’t a deep crafting tech tree here, for one thing, or any kind of building, and sleeping isn’t mandatory. I find the horse survival elements interesting, but the moment to moment play isn’t really about gathering resources. It’s about managing your carry weight, riding safely to avoid injuries, and choosing thoughtful routes through the steppes to stay fed.
