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Horse Tales—Emerald Valley Ranch brings character and charm back to horse games

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Brittany Alva
5 sep 2023
Whether you’re a hardcore horse lover with a ranch of your own or an equestrian fan who appreciates the sport from afar, video games about horses have probably attracted you at some point. The idea of kicking back and enjoying horse races, managing your horses, and riding around beautiful scenery is an appealing one, especially when your life is busy and chaotic. Horse Tales—Emerald Valley Ranch is a fitting culmination of all these things, and the game’s sense of freedom and world breathe life into an often-stale genre.

In Horse Tales—Emerald Valley Ranch, your goal is to renovate a dilapidated family ranch. There’s a storyline that keeps you on track as you explore the massive island, race against other horse owners, and breed your stock to get the best genetic combinations possible.

While the story does a good job of showing you what the game has to offer, it also gives you plenty of excuses to stretch your horses’ legs. However, you can ignore the central quest if you want, which means that you can forge your own path quite easily. This sense of freedom gives Horse Tales—Emerald Valley Ranch a lot of its charm.

It’s not uncommon for a horse game to have paths to ride on, but Horse Tales—Emerald Valley Ranch takes things to a new level with its enormous open world to explore. Beyond getting from point A to point B, exploring gives you a chance to find building materials and encounter wild horses.
Horse Tales Emerald Valley Ranch Brings Character And Charm Back To Horse Games Wildflowers
That’s not the only way the game embraces freedom. For example, races are a key way to earn prestige for your ranch, and there are multiple different routes around the cross-country tracks. If your horse has a great endurance stat, you may take the straight path and run it as hard as you can. On the other hand, if your horse has stellar agility, then you may choose to take the short routes filled with jumps. Either way, the important thing is that the choice is yours.

There’s also freedom around the ranch. While you can’t completely choose where everything goes, you have a good degree of independence. Areas have specific sizes, and the dimensions of the various buildings dictate the area they can go in. You also have the freedom to decorate your horse with whatever you have. There are design options you can collect through various methods, and they vary from crazy hats to beautiful saddle mats. You can even transform your horse into a unicorn.

These little moments make the game feel like it’s set in an actual lived-in world, which doesn’t really happen in horse games. There are other ranches and riders around, and you can interact and even breed your horses with their stock. You can make friends that help you when you need it, and check out the wild horses that roam the countryside.

This gorgeous setting combined with the overwhelming sense of freedom—which is a feeling that’s often associated with horses and riding in general—make Emerald Valley Ranch the horse game that beats all others.

You can experience one of the best modern horse games by getting Horse Tales—Emerald Valley Ranch here on the Epic Games Store.