We’re thrilled to finally share the release date for Horses of Hoofprint Bay! See for yourself in our brand new Release Date Reveal Trailer right here: 

And so we don’t keep the information for anyone unable to watch a video right now: the game is scheduled to release on November 4th 2026!  

We still have plenty to do until then – from testing, balancing and bugfixing to adding and refining some additional content – but we are confident that we’ll have a good version of this game ready for you all by November 4th! 

The game will go straight into a full release, no Early Access, no feature addition roadmaps. We’ll of course keep a close eye on people’s experiences at launch to make sure everything is working as intended and fix bugs as necessary, but for the most part, we want to release a finished game and not promise any major updates beyond that. 

If you’re interested in what’s been changing since the Demo version, take a look at our latest Dev Update right here: With the recent addition of Cross Country Competitions, Desensitization Training, Horse Personality Traits and more, there are quite a few cool new things to look forward to at release! 

And one more thing: we’ll be at Gamescom in Cologne next week! If you are nearby, make sure to come say Hello at the Games Bavaria booth E-051g in Hall 10.2, to try the latest version of Horses of Hoofprint Bay with our super cool home-made Saddle Controller

A ton of things have been happening behind the scenes of Horses of Hoofprint Bay, it's time for a round-up of some exciting new additions to the game that we haven't talked about yet.

We did not want to confirm the inclusion of these features until we were sure we had the time and capacity to tackle them, but everything mentioned here has now been implemented and is currently being tested and balanced with the help of a small handful of beta testers. More testers will be added in the coming weeks, so if you're signed up, definitely keep an eye on your Steam emails.

We've added "Prestige" to the game as a measure of your progress: Prestige can be gained through upgrading your buildings, winning competitions, caring for boarders and having high quality horses. It is also possible to lose Prestige through failing competitions, competing on dirty horses or without appropriate clothing and having horses fall seriously ill. Your current Prestige value doesn't just give you a sense of how far along you are in the overall game progression, it also determines the quality of horses that the breeder offers to you, the variety of tack items that can be purchased in the shop, and which trail rides are available to unlock.

To give you something to do with nursing mares, and to get an excuse for our artist to draw foal animations, we've added "Going on a Walk" as an option in the arena and the forest! You can take any horse out for a walk, but we particularly recommend doing it with nursing mares because their foals will get to come along, and we think that's adorable.

We weren't quite satisfied with how quickly you could max out a horse's confidence in our Demo version, so we've overhauled this stat in a handful of ways: Unprompted gait changes now show a little warning icon before they happen, giving you a chance to correct your horse before it actually slows down or speeds up. To properly train your horse's confidence, we've added a Desensitization training course, where your goal is to approach a scary object while keeping a careful eye on your horse's reactions: praise them when they're being curious, and give them space and time when they become worried.

The final balancing might still be tweaked, but overall, these changes mean it'll take a bit longer for a horse to reach full confidence, but also that the effects of reduced confidence can be more easily mitigated in turn.

Here's a sneak peak of the feature, but note that the visuals here are heavily work-in-progress! The animation outlines are not final yet, which results in the mane and tail not being displayed, and the "scary objects" themselves – a bunch of pool noodles in this case – will also get further refined!

Next to Caprilli Tests and Showjumping, we've added a third competition discipline! Cross Country competitions are a significant challenge for late game horses with high strength and endurance values. During Cross Country Competitions, you can sometimes select a shorter path with harder obstacles or a longer path with slightly easier jumps, allowing for a bit of strategic consideration based on your horse's remaining strength.

To help you get the hang of these difficult jumps and combinations, we also added a new staff member: Maria is a retired competition rider who sees everything: Hire her and she will let you know what you need to do differently during training!

Giving horses individual personality traits were one of the main big requests we got from players after releasing our demo, and we're thrilled to announce that we've now implemented a big batch of horse traits! These traits and quirks determine various tendencies within existing mechanics, like some horses getting dirty quicker than others, some horses being more or less prone to injuries, some horses occasionally changing gaits on their own even with full confidence... These traits won't massively change how horses behave, but we do hope they add a bit of individuality and that they give you another aspect to select horses for!

With all these new additions, the game is currently once again chock-full of placeholder sketches that we'll be replacing with final graphics over the coming weeks and months! We have a lot left to do not just in terms of balancing, polish and tutorialization, but also some additional content like quests and trail ride designs. Despite all this, we remain confident that the game will be in a release-worthy state by the end of the year, and we hope to have more info on an exact release date for you all soon!

We will be exhibiting Horses of Hoofprint Bay at the Games Bavaria booth in Hall 10.2 at Gamescom this month! Join us there to play the latest version of the game with our custom saddle controller (see how it works here!), and to meet the team in person!

We celebrated getting 50'000 Wishlists last week! That's very exciting for us and we want to thank you all so much for your enthusiasm and your support! 💖