The Legend of Khiimori

The Legend of Khiimori is an open-world survival game developed by Aesir Interactive and Nightingames, published by Mindscape, that entered Early Access on March 3, 2026 for Windows via Steam and the Epic Games Store. Set in 13th-century Mongolia, it casts players as Naraa, a courier for the historical Yam postal relay network, with horse breeding, training, and route planning forming the actual core gameplay loop rather than the usual survival-game checklist of hunger and crafting. One preview described it, not unreasonably, as “Death Stranding but horses.”

It’s also a rare case of a Kickstarter-funded game that outgrew the brand it was originally built to promote. It launched development life as a spin-off of an existing franchise and ended up standing entirely on its own before release.

Technical Specifications

From Windstorm Spin-off to Its Own IP

Aesir Interactive is a German studio with an established track record in horse games, including Horse Tales: Emerald Valley Ranch and multiple titles tied to Windstorm (known in Germany as Ostwind), a long-running horse-focused film and book franchise. The project was announced in May 2024 as Windstorm: The Legend of Khiimori, explicitly framed as the newest entry under that established brand. On October 9, 2025, Aesir announced via Discord that the Windstorm name would be dropped entirely — the game had grown enough of its own identity during development that the studio chose to release it as a standalone property, The Legend of Khiimori, rather than a franchise tie-in.

A Record-Breaking Kickstarter

The game’s Early Access development was funded through a Kickstarter campaign that ran through early 2025, closing on April 11 with €504,798 raised from 8,889 backers against an original €60,000 goal — an overfunding ratio of more than 8x. It became, by a narrow margin, the most successful video game Kickstarter campaign ever run from Germany’s DACH region, edging past the sci-fi shooter Everspace 2. The campaign’s final stretch goal, “Falconers of Mongolia,” was unlocked in the campaign’s closing days and promises eagle-hunting as a feature in later Early Access updates.

Naraa and the Yam Network

Players take on the role of Naraa, a newly appointed rider for the Yam — the real historical network of horse-relay postal stations the Mongol Empire used to move messages and goods across enormous distances. The game builds its open-world structure directly around that system: expanding the network by connecting more stations, planning delivery routes across steppe, mountain, and desert terrain, and managing a horse’s saddlebag weight and stamina rather than a human character’s own survival meters, since the player character is, by design, effectively unkillable — it’s the horse that has needs.

Horse Breeding as the Core Loop

The system most reviewers and previewers single out is horse breeding and genetics: pairing horses for specialized traits, training offspring across generations, and building a stable suited to specific terrain and delivery challenges. GamesRadar’s early preview specifically compared the horse-bonding feel to Red Dead Redemption 2, one of the more frequently cited touchstones for horse behavior in games, and treated Khiimori’s version of that relationship as a genuine selling point rather than a side attraction.

Archery as a Tool, Not a Weapon

One of the more distinctive design choices is how the game treats its bow and arrow: rather than a combat-first weapon, archery is built as a multi-purpose tool for gathering resources, solving environmental puzzles, and hunting in a way the game frames as respectful rather than purely extractive — official messaging around the game specifically talks about paying respect to an animal’s soul and not losing a horse’s trust through ruthless survival play. It’s a deliberate tonal choice that separates the game from most open-world survival titles, where a bow typically exists purely to kill things.

The Wind Horse Myth

The title itself is drawn from Mongolian and broader Central Asian mythology: a khiimori, or “wind horse,” is a symbolic spirit associated with luck, vitality, and the connection between earth and sky in traditional Mongolian belief, often represented on prayer flags. The game folds this mythology into its premise directly, promising a story that blends its historically grounded 13th-century setting with supernatural elements tied to the legend the title references — though as of Early Access, that story layer is still largely unbuilt.

Early Access, Honestly

The game is upfront about where it currently stands: its own new-game menu states plainly that “story is not implemented at this stage,” and early previews have confirmed the Early Access build is centered almost entirely on the core gameplay loop — deliveries, horse care, and exploration — rather than narrative content. Steam user reviews have nonetheless settled at “Very Positive,” with praise concentrated on the horse breeding system, the Mongolian steppe’s landscapes, and its soundtrack. The most common criticisms mirror what you’d expect from an ambitious Early Access sim: inconsistent performance, sparse NPC voice work and animation, an unfinished plot, and a price point some players consider steep for the amount of content currently available.

Where to Play It Today

The Legend of Khiimori is currently available in Early Access on Windows PC only, through Steam or the Epic Games Store. Store listings exist on both PlayStation and Xbox, but no console release date has been confirmed as of this writing — Aesir has previously said a console version is undecided rather than ruled out.