The Horse Nerd’s Review of Elden Ring – How Torrent Satisfies Gameplay Needs but Fails at Horse Movement

Elden Ring is an action roleplaying game by Dark Souls creator From Software, featuring writing by Game of Thrones author George R. R. Martin. I have to be honest, Elden Ring is the kind of game that I would usually hear about, be mildly intrigued by, and then completely ignore, simply because I very rarely have the patience for big budget AAA titles these days. 

But thanks to my partner giving me access to the game over Steam’s family sharing and me having an otherwise lazy Sunday two few weeks back, I figured I might as well put together some impressions and opinions on the horse-like creature that you ride in Elden Ring. And then I got sucked in, actually bought it for myself and am now 30 hours into it with no intention of stopping soon. 

Even so, please note that this article is in no way a review of the whole game. If you’re not interested in detailed analysis of horse animation, then you’ve come to the wrong website. But this is The Mane Quest and complaining extensively about how horse legs work or don’t work is what we do. Let’s begin.  

Note: this article contains a few screenshots from different parts of the game world, but is otherwise completely spoiler-free.

My Little Torrent

A cutscene very early in the game introduces you to a horned creature with an equine body and a goat-like head. Shortly after landing in the open world of the “Lands Between”, a mysterious hooded lady named Melina hands you her Spectral Steed Whistle. The spectral steed in question goes by the name of Torrent and has chosen you as its rider, she tells you. And that’s about it for exposition, which I suppose is to be expected from a Souls-like game: getting thrown into the middle of it and figuring out what to do by dying painfully a bunch is kind of a selling point here. 

If you’re wondering why the feet are cut off in this screenshot: I an unable to angle my camera to properly see my whole horse.

Goat horse or Cow horse?

Torrent’s functionality is very straight forward: the Spectral Steed Whistle is an item for you to equip: mounting and dismounting are synonymous with the steed being summoned and vanishing completely. While that’s not necessarily how I prefer my horses in games, it’s an absolutely serviceable solution that avoids any such dissonance like how many game horses teleport behind you if you’ve left them at the other edge of the map. 

I quite like Torrent’s design. I happen to be a big fan of the concept of adding horns to any kind of animal to make them look more unique, so I’m perfectly on board with this not being a regular real life horse. Torrent’s neck is covered in enough shaggy fur to make a Jorvik Wild jealous, his long forelock and wide set ears give him that Highland Cattle, fresh-out-of-bed look, and there are a bunch of dapples on his butt that are adorable, though sadly mostly hidden by tack and baggage. 

Torrent’s hit points can be healed by feeding him raisins that you craft from the commonly found Rowa fruit, and the feeding animation is cute as hell. The steed’s gaits are limited to walk and canter, which I don’t love (this is trot erasure smh), but can forgive in a game like this. 

Early on, two different NPCs imply that Torrent accepting you as his rider proves that you’re worthy, though of what I’m not yet sure. That and the fact that Torrent’s name fits right in with names like Windstorm, Thunderhead and co. has massive horse girl energy and nobody can tell me otherwise. 

Torrent can double jump in mid-air, which is definitely also not where I come in wagging the realism finger – double jumps are no less physically impossible for humans than they are for horses, and we’ve already established that this creature is magical, so this is all perfectly fine with me. 

Legs, Joints, Motion

Now let’s get to the bit I’m not fine with: Torrent’s joints. Our goat-horse unfortunately suffers from the two very common issues of overly bendy forelegs and completely stiff fetlocks. I feel like a broken record at this point, because I’ve pointed this out in so many games already, but a horse’s fetlock joints should lower as they bear weight. Animating an extra joint is of course extra work, but I still am continuously disappointed that even a game of the scope and resources as Elden Ring does not consider this necessary for its main character’s mount. 

The lack of motion in the lower hind leg joints gives the whole movement a certain stalking quality.

Less fetlock motion could be part of the goat-inspiration, but nothing excuses those overly bendy knees.

We can try to explain this away by pretending that Torrent is more goat than horse, or at least a mixture of the two: from looking at goat walk footage, their lower legs stay fairly straight indeed. Since Torrent’s legs look significantly more equine than uuh… caprine, I’m not really satisfied by that excuse. Especially since there are actually other non-goat horses in this game as enemy mounts and they have tend to have the same issue. 

Additionally, Torrent has a severe case of spider-legs when moving over any type of uneven ground: The steed’s inverse kinematics are set up to reduce motion for the rider, and they sacrifice equine joint functionality as a result. As soon as you pause in your movement, or move over any rocky terrain more slowly, you’ll quickly see Torrent standing on weirdly bent broken legs. 

Spider-horse, spider-horse

When it comes to weight-bearing in uphill movement, the legs of goats and horses work similarly. Video Source.

Regular TMQ readers – or really anyone who’s given some thought to the concept of how do horse move – will remember the mantra of weight-carrying forelegs never being bent in real life horse movement. In researching some equine movements on rocky terrain – and in researching goats, because yes, I like being thorough in my pedantry – I am able to find examples of bent forelegs carrying weight, but that only ever applies to very brief moments. While a freeze frame of these two movements may look comparable, a gif in motion shows just how impossible Torrent’s joint logic is: instead of straightening to carry the weight and take the next step, Torrent’s legs remain bent throughout the motion, resulting in this spider-crawl.  

Video source

While I initially found this unbelievably infuriating, playing the game for longer has made me realize that the choice is at least partially understandable from a gameplay perspective – in a game like Elden Ring, where precision and timing is crucial against every foe, your mount’s movement being uneven might be enough to stop you from using it during combat. 

Meaning: I get why smooth movement was prioritized over equine realism. At the same time though, I don’t think it would have been impossible to get both: It should be possible for Torrent’s legs to straighten when he’s standing still and for his pastern bones to align properly, without that severely hindering the mount’s usefulness for the player. 

I feel like what it boils down to once again is just that nobody considered equine locomotion accuracy enough of a priority in the game’s development to actually fix this and find a way to make it feel good AND look good. Which… again, I get that not everyone cares as much about making horses look nice in games as I do, but imagine for a sec that a game with this overall production value had a human character who just constantly walked in a squat for the sake of smoothness.

Other Equines 

As mentioned above, Torrent is not the only equine in the game: Enemy mounts, quadruped enemies and NPC companions tend to be hit or miss: One chonky war horse type that you encounter multiple times has a nice shape but the same stiff-fetlock issue as Torrent. I found another more slender courser type on the Weeping Peninsula, which uses a different animation set and moves significantly nicer to my eye. It’s unfortunately hard to watch and record enemy mounts more closely, since those pesky enemies tend to attack you when you get close.

When it comes to the lanky giraffe-donkey that accompanies the merchants, I’m not sure how much of its gaunt weirdness is deliberate stylization and how much is just wrong. I appreciate the concept of travelling merchants having a pack mule, but honestly what the fuck is that anatomy, I’m not even getting started. 

Never mind me, just hiding in a bush to observe enemy horses’ walk cycles.

Meth. Not even once.

Conclusion

So where does this leave us? Elden Ring is not the type of game that you should play for its horse. There aren’t a lot of horse-related features, and the animation is not particularly convincing. If you’re otherwise interested in Elden Ring though, Torrent is a perfectly decent quasi-equine companion that you can get attached to and explore the world with – as long as you don’t look at his foot placement too closely. 

Where my non-horse related thoughts on the game are concerned, I’m pleasantly surprised by how much I’m enjoying this: I’ve never played a Souls-like game and am not generally a sucker for deliberately punishing games, but Elden Ring has managed to pull me in by giving me plenty of tools to make the gameplay pleasant for myself, like frequent safe points and entertaining ways to grind for level ups before committing to the more challenging boss fights. I’m digging the general mystery of what’s still in store, I like the difficulty, I enjoy the pretty sights in many parts of the world. 

And yes, I enjoy my weird cow goat horse friend and how cute he looks when I feed him raisins while running from some overpowered enemy I’ve accidentally aggravated. Despite his dumb legs looking all wrong more often than not.