The Legend of Khiimori

About

The Legend of Khiimori is a single player open world simulation game with a historical theme. It was developed by NightinGames and was released on November 4, 2025. It received positive reviews from players.

The Legend of Khiimori is a system-driven game where you explore the untamed land of 13th century Mongolia as a brave courier rider. Breed and train horses with specialized abilities to explore every aspect of this diverse and fascinating landscape. Explore an untamed 13th century Mongolia as a brave courier rider13th century Mongolia is the home of history’s best horse riders. The land is beau…

Genres & Tags

Play Modes

Single-Player

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86%

Audience ScoreBased on 791 reviews

gameplay89 positive mentions

stability121 negative mentions

Beautiful and immersive open world with stunning Mongolian landscapes and atmosphere.
Realistic and detailed horse mechanics, including breeding, care, and individual horse traits.
Engaging and relaxing gameplay loop centered on horse riding, deliveries, exploration, and resource management.

The game is in early access and has notable bugs, glitches, and some performance issues, including controls and animations needing polish.
Lack of story content and some repetitive mission structure with limited NPC diversity and interactions.
Issues with saving, tethering horses, and optimization, with occasional crashes and UI problems that impact gameplay experience.

gameplay
277 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
32%
65%
3%
The gameplay offers a unique and immersive horse-riding experience focused on breeding, training, delivering cargo, and exploration within a rich Mongolian-inspired setting. While the horse mechanics and survival systems are praised for their depth and realism, the current early access build suffers from bugs, performance issues, and some clunky controls that occasionally hinder smooth play. Despite these challenges, the core gameplay loop is engaging, relaxing, and promising, especially for fans of detailed horse simulators and open-world exploration.
- “The core gameplay loop features delivering cargo, expanding your yam (trade) network, taking care of your horses/cargo, as well as breeding new horses better suited to the progressively more hostile environments and trade routes you'll need to traverse.”
- “This horse-riding adventure delivers a surprisingly immersive experience, blending smooth controls with satisfying exploration mechanics that make every ride feel dynamic and rewarding.”
- “The horse mechanics feel absolutely spot on, and galloping through the open world with the music swelling in the background creates a truly beautiful atmosphere.”
- “The horse mechanics and controls could definitely use tweaking and polishing; at the moment it's stupid easy to keep your horse happy even when treating it like total garbage.”
- “Gameplay is incredibly boring; the only objectives you have are riding from point A to B and delivering packages.”
- “At this moment in time you can basically explore, collect ingredients/materials and breed purchased horses with buggy controls, bugs preventing the limited gameplay (e.g. the horse merchant not working) and wonky movement.”
story
267 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
13%
77%
10%
The game currently lacks a main story mode beyond an introductory tutorial, focusing instead on a relaxing, open-world gameplay loop of horse care, breeding, and repetitive courier missions. While players appreciate the immersive environment and potential for future narrative development, many note that the absence of a fuller storyline and quest variety makes the experience feel incomplete and repetitive in its early access state. Enthusiasm remains high for upcoming story content and further polishing to deepen player engagement.
- “The story backbone is already there, the gameplay is already good and the graphics are stunning.”
- “The courier missions in this game give you a reason to breed and train the right horse for different circumstances, so even though the story hasn't been implemented past the tutorial yet there's plenty to keep me entertained so far.”
- “Plus: extensive 24-hour after release game patch UE 5 title with well done varied open world design — steppes, mountains, desert landscape, streams, lakes, flora, fauna; survival gameplay element; Mongolian/English voice acting; authentic Mongolian musicians and their music; full 3-part narrative; full game story not released yet; current gameplay is fulfilling with extensive character horse development and challenging fun extensive courier missions; horse-player survival mechanics (sleep, food, water, mood, pack weight) are fun and challenging; extensive map, Mongolian horse culture and horse types; horse breeding with basic 20th century genotypes and phenotypes is fun and intriguing. I’m a biochemist by education, potentially breed your own super horses genetically ‘engineered’ for the Mongolian gameplay.”
- “There is no story line in this version.”
- “The story line has not been implemented either, so you're just running around aimlessly right now.”
- “There is no real story yet in early access, which makes the experience feel incomplete and directionless.”
graphics
175 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
43%
53%
4%
The game's graphics are widely praised for their stunning landscapes, detailed horse models, and realistic animations, creating an immersive and visually pleasing experience reminiscent of AAA titles. However, performance issues and poor optimization, especially during extreme weather effects, cause frame drops and graphical glitches on many systems, requiring players to frequently adjust settings. While NPC faces and animations are sometimes criticized as stiff or underwhelming, overall, the visuals are regarded as a standout feature that significantly enhances gameplay despite some bugs and hardware demands.
- “Incredible graphics, amazing animations and horse models, one of the best equestrian games out there.”
- “It is a visual masterpiece, with spectacular graphics even in early access, and the music is divine!”
- “The graphics are amazing, everything looks detailed, polished, and visually impressive.”
- “Graphics are poorly optimized: frame rate chugs, shadows pop in, shadows fizzle in during times of day shifting, pop-in, the courier has the GTA jump-leap from the PS2 era.”
- “The windstorm lags the hell out of my game, making the graphics look horrid.”
- “I was so excited for this game when I saw the demo and early access; the graphics are clunky at best for me and have that 'Unreal Engine' feel to them. I had to lower the graphics multiple times throughout my playthrough.”
music
141 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
55%
43%
2%
The music is widely praised for its beautiful, immersive, and culturally authentic Mongolian soundtrack, including traditional throat singing and folk instruments that deeply enhance the game's atmosphere and sense of place. While the soundtrack is generally considered a standout feature that complements the stunning landscapes and horse mechanics, some users note occasional issues like abrupt audio transitions, loud mixing that can overpower dialogue, and limited musical variety. Overall, the music significantly contributes to the relaxing and immersive experience, with its cultural authenticity and emotional resonance being especially appreciated.
- “It's beautiful, immersive, oddly soothing, and has an incredible soundtrack comprised of traditional Mongolian music!”
- “The devs have a lot of love for this game, it is seen in everything I experienced, the horses, the way it's very life like and the soundtrack is to die for!”
- “The team collaborated with people from Mongolian culture, and it shows, especially in the soundtrack.”
- “As for my experience, the audio controls need fine tuning as the music is very loud and overpowers the game. That said, the music itself doesn’t help the gameplay and the chanting in one segment agitates me to the point that I had to stop the game.”
- “The music is often so bad and annoying that I had to turn it off.”
- “The music tends to start up and cut off abruptly and occasionally overlaps with other area's soundtracks.”
stability
123 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
2%
98%
The game is notably buggy and glitch-prone, consistent with its early access status, often causing crashes, quest issues, and awkward horse mechanics. However, many players find it enjoyable and appreciate the developer's active efforts to fix problems, expressing optimism that stability will improve with future patches. Those sensitive to bugs might find it frustrating, but fans of the concept and gameplay remain hopeful for a polished release.
- “I have played 10 hours so far and have only experienced 2 crashes (one of them because of a spirit storm?), had no glitches but that's subjective.”
- “I was worried it wouldn't run properly on my laptop but with a few graphics adjustments it runs great.”
- “Can't recommend in its current state, extremely buggy and unoptimized.”
- “Game is too buggy to be playable, it was not ready for early access.”
- “Really beautiful but not really playable atm, way too buggy, multiple crashes, inventory gets messed up, horse cannot be healed, floor physics are weird.”
optimization
93 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
17%
67%
16%
Optimization for this early access game is inconsistent, with many users reporting performance issues such as stuttering, frame drops, and poor graphics scalability even on high-end systems. While some players experience smooth gameplay after tweaking settings, others face significant bugs and heavy resource demands, particularly during weather effects. Developers acknowledge these issues and are actively working to improve optimization, but the current state remains rough and unfinished.
- “The physics are solid and the performance is good — very good, which is something to appreciate in an early access release (we’ve been spoiled in the worst way).”
- “Game is running well with no stuttering on my desktop and seems pretty well optimized for an early access game and amazingly optimized for a "horse" game.”
- “Performance wise its running really amazingly well for me on my 4070 ti super, 7700x machine with 32 gb ram.”
- “Graphics are poorly optimized: frame rate chugs, shadows pop in, shadows fizzle in during times of day shifting, pop-in, the courier has the GTA jump-leap from the PS2 era.”
- “My PC is from around 2020, with several updated components, more than enough to run Star Citizen and other intensive games, yet the game is practically unplayable on my system due to optimization issues still unaddressed.”
- “I can't shut off upscaling and even after checking with the game what settings I should have enabled, I had to downgrade them and still couldn't play the game without it overheating my PC and stuttering at every camera turn.”
atmosphere
45 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
73%
20%
7%
The atmosphere of The Legend of Khiimori is widely praised for its beautiful, immersive Mongolian landscapes, relaxing and enchanting music, and a deeply engaging, peaceful mood that enhances exploration and horse gameplay. Players appreciate the game's ability to evoke a unique, meditative ambiance perfect for chill, atmospheric adventures. While some minor inconsistencies in art style exist, the overall atmosphere is considered a standout feature that draws players into its folklore-inspired open world.
- “The game has a gorgeous open world, quests, horse training and breeding (with actual genetics, btw!), along with an amazing atmosphere and music.”
- “Steppes stretching to the horizon, an atmosphere that oscillates between epic and meditative, and a musical backdrop that… well, we'll get to that.”
- “The horse mechanics feel absolutely spot on, and galloping through the open world with the music swelling in the background creates a truly beautiful atmosphere.”
- “Atmosphere: close, but off.”
- “The characters do their part to ground the atmosphere – unfortunately in the wrong sense.”
- “The game features many inked pictures in the UI, but the actual icons for items are colorful and cartoony, which feels incongruous with the game's atmosphere.”
grinding
16 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
6%
6%
88%
Grinding in the game is characterized by repetitive missions and frequent resource gathering, which some players find tedious, especially early on. However, the core gameplay involving travel and horse care remains engaging enough to offset the grind for many. While grinding can feel necessary and sometimes excessive, exploration and gameplay depth help maintain player interest.
- “It's not too grindy, and there's clearly a lot of discoveries I'm yet to figure out, like cooking and hostile areas.”
- “Missions can be repetitive and it can be a little grindy.”
- “Spent hours grinding for money only for the horse merchant to take all my money and never even give me a horse; auto save cannot be turned off, so if the game bugs, you're forced to start over from the beginning.”
- “I'm not going to lie, a bear giving your horse the ironclaw because your attention lapsed and then chasing you down over open grasslands was peak aura farming.”
humor
8 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The game's humor largely stems from its unintentionally funny bugs and glitches, such as exaggerated NPC mouth movements and endlessly respawning items, which many players find amusing rather than frustrating. Voice acting is solid, and these quirky issues add a lighthearted charm that can enhance the experience for those willing to laugh at the game's imperfections. However, some bugs may eventually hinder gameplay, so patience for future updates is advised.
- “Now, I thought this was absolutely hilarious and the community was a good sport about it whilst the devs worked their hardest to fix it, but if this is something that would keep you from having fun I'd say wait until the game has a few further content updates and more polish.”
- “I'm having a blast, and if you're okay laughing at the sheer WTF-ness of the inevitable weird bugs and glitches instead of getting mad about it, you'll probably have a blast too.”
- “There are also hilarious bugs that I'd never think of as a possibility before playing.”
emotional
6 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
100%
The emotional aspect of the game is mixed, with some users feeling that character expressions and voices lack depth, resulting in minimal emotional impact. However, others praise the game's immersive atmosphere and heartfelt attention to detail, creating intense and meaningful moments that resonate deeply. Overall, the emotional experience is seen as unique and promising, though not without its flaws.
- “The games themselves are quite different, but they share something rare: a heartfelt, relaxing, and deeply immersive atmosphere built on meticulous attention to historical detail.”
- “Legend of Khimori is a highly unusual title that combines AAA-level visual fidelity with the kind of heartfelt experimentation more often associated with indie games.”
- “It perfectly matches the atmosphere and makes every moment feel more intense and emotional.”
monetization
6 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
17%
33%
50%
Monetization is mixed, with some players appreciating the transparency and willingness to support the developer despite $70 spent on microtransactions, while others express concern over the game's pricing, in-app purchases, and fear of a cash grab similar to the studio’s previous buggy, abandoned title. The indie price point and ongoing microtransactions give some users apprehension about long-term support.
- “People shell out $70 for microtransactions and PNG buildings, so yeah, I'll spend my money on something I want to support.”
- “This studio also made "Horse Tales: Emerald Valley Ranch," which launched in a pretty rough state with lots of bugs, microtransactions, and is no longer receiving updates.”
- “It’s releasing at an indie price point of £30 for early access and gives me cash grab vibes, like they want to take as much as they can while the hype is there, then abandon it.”
- “In-app purchases (meaning you can buy things after buying the game, i.e., DLCs).”
replayability
2 mentions Positive Neutral Negative
50%
50%
Users generally find the game to have high replayability, expressing hope that it will continue to improve and become even more engaging over time.
- “High replayability.”