Video games offer many ways for players to explore their digital realms, from simply walking on foot to driving cars and even allowing players to pilot planes and starships.
However, one of the most common traversal mechanics seen in video games, especially those set in the past or in fantasy worlds, is riding on horseback from destination to destination.
Dozens of games feature horseback riding as either mandatory or optional modes of travel in various ways, from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time‘s Epona to The Last of Us‘ brief sections featuring horses.
Each game presents horseback traversal in its own unique way, but here’s a list of the 10 best games with horseback riding based on gameplay, the game’s environment, mounted abilities, and importance of horseback riding to the game’s story.
10 Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora
Alien Horses In a Beautiful Alien World
Horses don’t technically appear in Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, as the game is entirely set on the fictional alien moon of Pandora, but a six-legged equivalent to them appears on Pandora known as direhorses.
Like many creatures on Pandora, the Na’Vi can bond and form neural links with direhorses so that they can be used as swift mounts and help move supplies, just as horses are utilized on Earth.
In Frontiers, players can form temporary bonds with any wild direhorse and use them to travel across vast plains and forests found on Pandora’s western frontier as well as hunt down local wildlife and take down invading RDA human patrols.
While riding a direhorse in Pandora is a breathtaking sight, there’s not much reason to ride one instead of flying a banshee as an ikran is a much faster mount, and it can explore the floating mountains of Pandora that a direhorse simply cannot reach.
Climbing Mountains With Horses
2011’s The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is hilariously iconic for its horses’ ability to vertically climb mountains as a way for players to easily get to destinations instead of going along trails Bethesda originally intended.
Aside from their inexplicable climbing capabilities, Skyrim‘s horses are a fast and efficient way to explore the northern province of Tamriel, especially compared to how slow it can be to walk or run from town to town.
However, most horses in Skyrim are exceptionally weak, with them often dying from simple arrow shots, animal attacks, or perishing from long drops.
Horses can be a great help in battle, offering evasive mounted archery or sometimes aiding in melee combat directly, especially in Shadowmere’s case, but once most areas in Skyrim are already discovered, I usually tend to just fast travel instead of riding horses.
8 Horizon Zero Dawn
On A Steel Horse I Ride
Again, horses don’t technically appear in Horizon Zero Dawn, but it does have a robotic equivalent in the form of Project Zero Dawn’s horse-like Strider machines.
These relatively small machines are some of the most common found in the post-apocalyptic western United States and are some of the most docile in the game unless they’re corrupted by the rogue AI HADES or HEPHAESTUS.
Like most machines in the Horizon franchise, Aloy can override Striders to make them become temporary allies or mounts, becoming the fastest method of traveling throughout the Sundom.
Striders are especially helpful against fighting human enemies with their powerful kicks dealing a ton of damage to relatively weak humans and making Aloy a fast moving target, though I often ride Striders’ more powerful variants, the Broadhead and Charger, whenever I play Zero Dawn.
7 Assassin’s Creed Origins
Riding Through Ancient Egypt
Assassin’s Creed‘s open world games have made horseback riding more crucial than any other AC game before them, but out of every AC game released since 2017, I’d argue that Assassin’s Creed Origins still has the best horse riding in the entire franchise.
Origins is primarily set in northern Egypt and, as such, most of the game is set in deserts and fertile rivers. While the game does lean more towards players riding camels, players can ride horses and horse-drawn chariots throughout Bayek’s journey.
Players can pretty much ride horses from each corner of Origins‘ map to the other without any conflict, which cannot be said for Assassin’s Creed Odyssey‘s island-heavy map, the forests of Valhalla, or the dense bush and tree-filled hills of Shadows.
Plus, Origins‘ debuted the best iteration of the light bow, allowing Bayek to rapidly fire arrows at targets. Combined with a horse, Bayek can become a swift, deadly killing machine against animals and humans alike.
6 Elden Ring
Torrent’s Big Adventure
Despite largely taking place in medieval fantasy settings, the Soulsborne series never featured rideable horses until 2022’s Elden Ring with the spectral steed Torrent.
Like Frontiers‘ direhorses, Torrent isn’t technically a horse, but a goat and horse-like creature called a spectral steed that can be summoned from thin air with the Spectral Steed Whistle.
Elden Ring is the first true open-world Soulsborne game, so Torrent is critical in exploring the Lands Between until players are able to fast travel, though Torrent’s not able to be summoned in dungeons, most boss battles, or PvP and co-op scenarios.
Torrent is a lot of fun to travel with, as he’s able to double jump unlike most horse-like mounts in other games, able to access hard-to-reach areas through Spiritsprings, and he helps a lot in battle, especially against other mounted foes such as the gigantic Tree Sentinel.
5 The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild
Taming Horses in Hyrule
2017’s The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild was innovative in many ways for the Nintendo series, such as being the first true open world Zelda game, but one of its best changes to the franchise’s norms in terms of gameplay was its horse gameplay and mechanics.
Here, Link can sneak up on and attempt to break wild horses to use on his journey to defeat Ganon, with each horse having its own unique appearance and Strength, Speed, Stamina, and Temperament stats.
These stats will determine how well the horse will obey Link’s directions and their effectiveness and fearlessness in battle, but stronger, more obedient horses can be found by simply roaming Hyrule’s vast landscapes, on special quests, or scanning Amiibo, with the latter being the only way to summon Epona in the game.
While climbing cliffsides and flying through the air with the paraglider are fun, I always enjoyed the struggle of taming a wild horse and exploring Hyrule with them in Breath of the Wild until I was able to tame Ganon’s giant red-haired horse.
4 Ghost of Yotei
Horses of Ezo
Both Sucker Punch Productions’ Ghost of Tsushima and Ghost of Yotei offer great horseback gameplay in their respective historical eras of Japan, but I’d argue that Yotei‘s horse gameplay is slightly better than its 2020 predecessor.
Yotei‘s Ezo region is a lot more wide open compared to the island of Tsushima, allowing for some absolutely beautiful wide shots of Atsu riding a horse in vast fields around Mount Yotei.
These vast fields additionally benefit horseback traversal as fields of white flowers will give horses a temporary speed boost and guiding winds will give players an additional boost if they’re facing towards a marker.
Atsu can further collect most items while on horseback, which is a nice feature most other games with horses don’t offer, requiring players to instead constantly dismount their horse to pick up a few items before getting back on.
3 Shadow of the Colossus
Wander and Agro’s Journey
2005’s Shadow of the Colossus and its 2018 remake arguably feature some of the most complicated and critical horseback gameplay seen in all of gaming, as the game simply cannot be completed without riding a horse.
Here, the protagonist Wander and his trusty steed Agro journey to the Forbidden Lands in order to resurrect a girl called Mono by slaying 16 gigantic colossi.
Agro the horse is crucial to the game as she is needed to not only traverse the Forbidden Lands’ vast plains, deserts, forests, and ruins, but to also help take down the colossi by giving Wander a boost to climb on the massive creatures or to catch up to them and avoid their attacks.
Without Agro, Wander would never have been able to defeat the colossi or resurrect Mono. While Shadow is an amazing game, it’s held back a bit for me compared to other horse-related games due to its rather frustrating controls.
2 The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
Geralt and Roach’s Final Adventure
Gaming is filled with numerous dynamic duos such as Mario and Luigi, Master Chief and Arbiter, and Cal Kestis and BD-1, but when it comes to horseback traversal, no duo can quite top The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt‘s Geralt and Roach.
Like Breath of the Wild, the Wild Hunt features a vast open world that is best explored by traveling on horseback with Roach. Geralt can also fight monsters and bandits alike on top of Roach.
However, what makes traversing Wild Hunt great is the enthralling, comedic relationship between Geralt and Roach.
Roach will often become frightened by monsters Geralt fights, forcing the Witcher to calm the horse down, but on numerous occasions, Roach will brighten Geralt’s day by committing inexplicable acts like somehow appearing on a roof or even speaking to the Witcher.
1 Red Dead Redemption 2
A Cowboy’s Paradise
Of course, the best horseback traversal in gaming today would be found in arguably the best cowboy video game, Rockstar’s Red Dead Redemption 2.
Being set in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, horses are the primary and best way to traverse the last remnants of the American wild west in RDR2 and a bought or tamed horse is a perfect way to witness RDR2‘s beautiful scenery.
In terms of more complex gameplay, lots can be done on horseback in RDR2, such as competing in horse races, transporting animal pelts and meat, dragging tied up criminals or common folk with rope, using them to hijack carriages or trains, and fighting rival gangs or authority figures.
Despite Red Dead Redemption 2 already being almost seven years old, it still features some of the most realistic and detailed horse gameplay and is a perfect way to experience riding a horse without actually going out and riding one in real life.
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Author: 360 Technology Group
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