The Legend of Khiimori has entered its Early Access on Steam. MeinMMO editor Alexander Mehrwald took a look at the adventure with survival mechanics and was amazed at how addictive the gameplay loop is.
As a passionate trail rider, I of course had to try out “The Legend of Khiimori.” The feeling of freedom that the trailers convey inevitably made me think of my favorite times with Red Dead Redemption, where I rode for hours with my faithful steed through the magnificent open world.
I had high expectations, as I had never encountered a game focused on horseback riding that could truly convince me – let alone more than one game that revolved solely around horses.
But what I did not expect was that a side of me would awaken here that I usually only know from MMORPGs and games like Diablo: The gameplay loop quickly became addictive, and the grindfish in me wanted more and more of it.
You can also get an impression of the gameplay here in the trailer:
Explore Mongolia as a courier and grind as much as you can
But let’s start from the beginning. The Legend of Khiimori is an adventure with survival mechanics that many also refer to as “Death Stranding with horses.” It has been in Early Access on Steam since March 3, 2026.
You take on the role of the Mongol Naara. As a courier rider, you must deliver various goods for your settlement, map the surroundings, gather resources, and make a name for yourself with other settlements and traders.
For this, you explore a vast open world and take on various tasks at different locations. For completed tasks, you receive reputation and resources. The higher your reputation with a settlement or person, the more advantages you can build and use at the respective station with the corresponding resources. Each reputation level also unlocks new tasks for you.
This way, you hang from place to place and farm resources along the way, which you may need for crafting, quests, trading, or for buildings and tools. For example, with a lot of stones or wood, you can build useful bridges or, with the right ingredients, create healing potions or various powder bombs.
Over time, a very grind-heavy routine sets in, but it feels really rewarding due to the quick success experiences, no matter how small they may be. I quickly caught myself just having built a bridge to better cross the river – only to discover the next project in the settlement behind it, where I could build a camp.
The constant gathering, building, and leveling was so much fun that I had sunk countless hours into ancient Mongolia in just a few days, without realizing it. Especially in combination with many little secrets to discover in the open world and the various biomes, I quickly felt the thrill of adventurous travels.
The horse in focus and yet not a typical “horse game”
You do everything on horseback, and the grind doesn’t stop here. You have a choice of various breeds and coat colors, and each mount comes with its own stats, strengths, and weaknesses. This is also important, as your quests lead you to various terrains and biomes, for which the animals are each differently suited and thus bring you corresponding advantages or disadvantages for your missions.
The necessary horses can be purchased from a trader or bred and raised yourself, aside from your first horse after the tutorial. To get the most out of them, you need to combine cleverly and train your horses especially. You do this by selecting them as mounts for your missions, traveling around, and creating as many different situations as possible by using different inclines, terrains, and weights in saddle bags.
Smaller survival mechanics ensure that you need to keep track of hunger, thirst, mood, stamina, health, and several status effects like fear, cleanliness, fatigue, and so on, and take care of your animal while traveling through Mongolia. Your horses react realistically to different weather and terrain conditions and can slip, use more energy, or become scared.
But even if it may seem so at first, The Legend of Khiimori feels nothing like a pure horse game. The focus is much more on the grindy gameplay loop, exploring the map, and optimally planning routes and missions.
The weight of your cargo and its nature also play a big role and bring mechanical depth with them. Therefore, you must evenly distribute your saddle bags and backpack in order to maintain balance in the saddle. Otherwise, you run the risk of slipping on muddy or stony ground, as well as in tight curves, and injuring yourself – or damaging valuable goods.
Depending on the type of goods, your delivery is subject to conditions. Some goods are fragile, others must not get wet or dirty. This gives the “exploration simulator” a gameplay depth that clearly separates the game from typical horse games and awakens more exploration and grinding spirit than mere riding around and breeding horses.
There are also downsides that diminish the grind fun
But even though the gameplay loop is really addictive with its ever-present grind and many little successes, there are some downsides that have repeatedly led me to turn off the game and pick up other games after a while.
There were indeed several smaller bugs that were nevertheless annoying. For example, my faithful steed occasionally simply fell into the depths of the open world whenever I mounted. However, this could be resolved by dismounting and remounting. Sometimes the controls also did not react 100% accurately, causing my horse to nuzzle the next tent instead of stopping in front of it as intended.
Sometimes important items only appeared in my inventory after I emptied it, for which I received no prior notification, and I solved the problem more through intelligent guessing than with the help of the game.
Also, the open world sadly feels very empty outside of the points of interest and a few truly wild animals you can encounter. After a while, this unfortunately becomes boring, as you simply grow tired of the beauty of nature and encounter hardly any threats or difficulties outside the terrains. Once you know them, you can usually grind against them quite safely and reach your destination without further problems.
It also frustrated me at some point that there are really few points on the map where you can save. To ensure that the game saves your progress, you must either store items or reach certain locations, and depending on where you end up, it can take a good 30 minutes or even an hour to get there.
Nevertheless, you mustn’t forget that this is the start of Early Access and the developers have plans to expand the game with content and to address player feedback and issues. For my part, I definitely see a lot of potentials here, with which especially adventurers with an insatiable thirst for exploration and those who don’t shy away from a good grind can definitely have their fun.
However, friends of good stories should think twice about whether they want to take a look at The Legend of Khiimori during Early Access. Because while there are currently some voiced and guided passages, there will be no fully developed story in Early Access. And that has a good reason, as the developers told us in the interview: The German “Death Stranding with horses” will not have a story at Steam launch, allowing you to write your own tales
