Review: Windstorm - Ari’s Arrival – An Open World Horse Adventure that Outshines its Predecessor in Every Way

Windstorm: Ari’s Arrival, created by Aesir Interactive, was released along with the movie of the same name in March 2019. I’ve been meaning to review it basically ever since. I have to admit that we’ve all been sleeping on this one, because it really gets a whole bunch of things right, and deserves vastly more attention from horse-loving players than it has been getting.

“We want to build something that can grow over the years to come” - Windstorm Developer Aesir Interactive talks about New Plans and Past Struggles

Getting approached by the developers of horse games is always something exciting for me. In a call with Aesir Interactive CEO Wolfgang Emmer, I learned a lot about the development and reception of 2017s Ostwind/Windstorm and its 2019 sequel, as well as Aesir’s fascinating upcoming project.

Windstorm Studio announces new Open World Horse Riding Adventure

Aesir Interactive, the studio behind single player horse games Ostwind/Windstorm (2017) and Windstorm: Ari’s Arrival (2019) is working on a new horse-themed project.

Under the working title “Stable Girl”, the German team has qualified for funding at FFF Bayern, Bavaria’s film and media sponsorship program

The Best Horse Games to Play in 2019 on PC & Consoles

Hundreds of people search for terms like “best horse games 2019” and “horse games pc”. I dearly wish I could give these people any wholehearted recommendation where I can call something a genuinely good horse games without caveats about its quality. While I still consider the entire genre in dire need of some innovation and respectable implementation, here is an overview of what is available on each platform:

Ostwind/Windstorm — Gorgeous Landscapes, Strange Horse Animation and Shallow Gameplay

Ostwind is a franchise of horse themed books, movies and video games. At their center stand teenage girl Mika and the stallion Ostwind, who form a deep friendship and supernatural bond.

At a glance, Ostwind quickly looks like having the highest production value of any horse game ever made, with its highly detailed environments and promises of a big open world. Does that impression remain after a closer? Find out below.