October 2026 Blog: The Fjord Horse & Character Name Change!
The Fjord Horse
By Lotta (Freelance 3D Artist)
When I was asked to work on the new Fjord horse, I was over the moon. Their stubborn personality and striking mane make them one of my favorite breeds of all time. Fjord horses are quite common where I grew up, so I've ridden a few in my youth, unforgettable experiences!
As always, we started with a bunch of research into the Fjord horse. Did you know they are one of the oldest breeds in the whole world? They are up there with the Mongolian and the Icelandic horses. Looking at horses in old cave paintings, I wonder if the Fjord horse is a little window into an ancient past. With their wild markings and mealy flanks, they do seem to share some similarities!
During my research, I also found out that, while the Fjord is almost always beige, there is a lot of variation within that beige. To make sure we could represent a proper tan rainbow in the line-up, I made some exploration sketches before starting on the final coat colors. This way I made sure to include a good variety of lighter, darker, and middle-toned coats.
Of course I cannot talk about the Fjord without mentioning their insanely thicc manes! Few horses can pull off the crazy hairstyles associated with Fjords. We realised we had an opportunity here to get some really unique manes into the game, and you can see some early sketches above. Not all of these sketches made it into the game, but rest assured we made an effort to get the most out of the limited mane slots available!
When working on textures, I like to add all the models into a single large file, so I can jump around from area to area more easily. Every head sports a different mane style. Can you count how many there are?
In the process of implementing the horse in the game, the animations can go a little wild sometimes. Some thought they were just politely begging for food, but I called in an exorcist just in case…
While I cannot tell you much about the animation process, I can tell you that the animation team did a wonderful job bringing the Fjords to life <3
They managed to put so much personality into them, and I think the end result is an amazing and unique horse. I hope you will love them as much as I do!
P.S. The Fjords look particularly good in the snow, don't you think?
Ready for change? Name change option: is coming!
By Juliana (Senior Producer)
We’ve read many posts, we got reports from Customer Support and the Community team… and it’s honestly really emotional to read some of your stories of name regrets. So we’re super happy to announce that you will finally be able to change your name from November 18th this year. To celebrate, for the first two weeks, you will be able to change your name once for free.
You may wonder – why did it take so long? “It’s just a name change, how hard can it be?” (We’ve read these comments too, hehe) Apparently, quite complicated tbh.
The dream of bringing this to you started during a Passion Week, when a developer set out to explore what it would take to build the functionality to change the character name.
Complications were found. Long story short, it just wasn’t built for it from the start… BUT the conclusion was: totally doable! 🦄
Unfortunately, we had to deal with some other big priorities first… but we never forgot the name-change dream. FINALLY, we could pick it up again… and it has taken some heavy lifting from our Backend Developers, with a lot of joint forces on the tech side and UX/UI Designers to bring this to you. Thanks for your patience 💜
This might be the most underwhelming preview ever, my apologies:
As you go on riding into Jorvik with a new name, may you choose it wisely. But if you – once again – find that you indeed have ✨regrets✨… you will be able to change the name again, in exchange for Star Coins. There’s a 30-day cool-down period for every name change, during which time you can revert the change if you wish – but what is a 30-day wait in comparison with waiting years to correct your earlier name choice. Questions? We will shortly publish an article in the help section with more details, stay tuned!
