MMOEXP: The subject topic and this Elden Ring

Ludwighench

The year before, I had the absolute delight of coming across The Mane Quest, a website that is almost exclusively dedicated to horses in video games. Since Elden Ring Runes now out, and riding being prominently featured, I wanted to check to whether they had any thoughts regarding the game's horse. I've not been disappointed.

The site, run by horse enthusiast and game designer Alice Ruppert -- takes a lighthearted and yet incredibly practical approach to the subject topic and this Elden Ring review is no different. Instead of analyzing the game it just looks at Torrent, and several other horses as well. It also examines the extent to which they are "realistic" their animation and controls are.

In the case of games like Red Dead Redemption 2, their reviews tend to lean towards the realistic side of things, as those are actual horses that we play with and they can be directly compared. In Elden Ring, though, they aren't really horses which is why the review will be a bit different.

The neck of Torrent has enough fur shaggy to make Jorvik Wild jealous, his long forelock as well as his wide set ears provide him with that Highland Cattle, fresh-out-of-bed look and there's some dapples adorning his back that are cute although they're mostly hidden by tack and baggage.

Mane Quest's issues eventually come into something that I'd not seen them before, but I cannot un-see: Torrent looks like a horse, but their legs bend like...well as if they shouldn't sort of like a goat but not actually:

Let's move on to what I'm not pleased with: Torrent's joints. The goat-horse we have suffers from two common issues of overly bendy forelegs and fetlocks that are completely stiff. It's like breaking a record right now as I've pointed it out in many games, but a horse's fetlock joints must be reduced as they bear weight. Animation of an additional joint is , of course, more effort, but I remain disappointed that an action game of this dimension and resources of Elden Ring does not consider this necessary for its main character's mount.

We can try to explain this using the excuse you believe that Torrent is more horse than goat, or at the very least, a mix of the two. From viewing footage of goat walks the lower legs of their animals are pretty straight. Since Torrent's legs look significantly more equine than... caprine's legs I'm not completely content with the excuse. Particularly since there are other non-goat horses in this game who are mounted by enemies, and they tend to exhibit the same issues.

While visually confusing it is, at the very least, some logic behind the goat's legs: they may appear odd but they're functional. Playing the Elden Ring Runes buy game for a longer period has helped me understand that this is at the very least understandable in terms of gameplay in a game like Elden Ring, where precision and timing is essential against any opponent, your horse's irregular movement could be enough to prevent you from using it during combat.Meaning I understand the reason why smooth movement is favored over the realism of horses.

I also would wish to believe that at some point during Elden Ring's design process somebody thought, "Maybe the player needs horses," and somebody else thought, "Not fucked up enough the horse should be a goat with horse legs" then everyone nodded.