https://www.theguardian.com/games/2018/nov/22/how-rockstar-red-dead-redemption-2-horses-made

At Rockstar’s Edinburgh studio, designers reveal the lengths they went to in creating the western adventure’s animal soul

Oddly for a multimillion-selling blockbuster video game, in Red Dead Redemption 2 you spend many, many hours staring at a horse’s ass. Of the 70-ish hours I’ve spent with the game so far, I reckon 35 have been in a saddle, either exploring the wilderness or haring it from A to B on the way between story chapters. Horses are omnipresent, hitched to wagons, trotting under everyone from lawmen and farmers, running wild in the fields. They aren’t just a means of conveyance – they’re the soul of the game, beautiful and blameless, metaphors for the natural freedom that the game’s humans keep screwing up. If I ever accidentally shoot one in a fight, I feel appalled at myself.