It may come as a surprise to many new fans of the game, but Uma Musume is actually a few-year-old franchise created by Cygames, that already has an anime which aired back in 2018.
The series has just stepped into the limelight, basking in its newfound popularity, thanks to the worldwide release of Uma Musume Pretty Derby for PC and mobile platforms. But is it the only franchise to do what it does so well though?
We have managed to list a few other games below that you may find great if you loved Uma Musume.
Best Games Like Uma Musume
Fate/Grand Order
The Fate franchise is no stranger to audiences of both anime and games. The series started as a visual novel written by Kinoko Nasu, and has come far in becoming one of the best, most celebrated fantasy series in both mediums.
But what is it doing in a list that is about games similar to Uma Musume, you might ask. Well, the popular gacha game in the franchise, Fate/Grand Order, is actually fundamentally very similar to Uma Musume.
In the later game, you are working hard to raise anime girl idols that are created after real-life race horses. Fate/Grand Order similarly deals with historical and mythical figures who have been turned into anime girls with their original and cool personalities.
Azur Lane
Azur Lane is a gacha shoot ‘em up game that was created by Shanghai Manjuu and Xiamen Yongshi. It originally launched in 2017 only for select regions, but then a worldwide release was followed up in 2019, and presently, it is one of the most popular gacha games.
You will love Azur Lane if you like Uma Musume, and it’s not just because they both deal with collectible anime girls like many other gachas. Azur Lane is fundamentally very similar to Uma Musume.
Azur Lane’s plot deals with a setting that is an alternate World War II timeline, where the players get to control anthropomorphic battle ships that are just anime girls. Something that’s very similar to Uma Musume, as players are training anthropomorphic horse girls.
Derby Stallion Masters
Okay, we will agree that this one is pretty boring and straightforward compared to the others in this list. Derby Stallion Masters gets to be in this list because it is literally the real life game that Uma Musume is inspired from, but this one doesn’t have anime girls.
Derby Stallion Masters is actually a long running game franchise with multiple games in the series, this one being the latest iteration.
The game was developed by the Japanese video game company ParryBit. Players get to simulate a real-life horse race and breeding. The main goal is management, and at times it can get quite complex.
Blue Archive
Other than Fate/Grand Order, this is another franchise that is super popular among all the gacha games. It also just recently received a worldwide release for Windows PC systems.
Blue Archive was created by MX Studio, which is affiliated with Nexon Games studio, a company whose name gacha fans are very familiar with, and they have released several other popular titles such as Dungeons & Fighter.
Similar to Uma Musume, where you play as the trainer for anthropomorphic horse girls and train them for derby races, in Blue Archive, you play the role of a teacher for the academic city of Kivots, where you are training and recruiting students for combat.
Girls’ Frontline
Another game that is very similar to Uma Musume in vein is Girls’ Frontline. It is another game like many others on this list, which was developed for mobile devices by the studio called MICA Team, and it also just got its PC release, but just in China for now.
The similarities between Uma Musume and Girls’ Frontline are very close in nature to what we already talked about with Fate/Grand Order. The gameplay is actually Strategy RPG combat, but you play with anime girls in your team who are androids known as T-Dolls.
The T-Dolls are literally the real-world firearms turned into anime girls in the fictional world of Girls’ Frontline. This is very similar to how real-world race horses are turned into anime girls in Uma Musume.
Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road
Inazume Eleven is a very popular anime as well as a game series that is developed Level-5, who are the creators of popular games such as the Ni No Kuni series. But compared to Uma Musume, this one is going to be a bit different as it doesn’t involve anime girls.
Inazuma Eleven: Victory Road is a console game that mixes RPG with football. It has already been beta tested this year and will be released in August of 2025.
If you are familiar with Inazuma Eleven media, then this might be a good game for you because the gameplay allows players to collect and train characters from all over the series’ history, pretty similar to what Umamusume does.
THE IDOLM@STER STARLIT SEASON
The Idolmaster series is not a new video game franchise; it has been around for quite a while and used to be an arcade game originally that later came to consoles. The series has also found popularity in other media such as anime.
This is one video game franchise that sort of pioneered the gaming sub-genre that deals with recruiting and management sim of anime girls. The Idolmaster series did it with idols, the real-life culture for which is huge in Japan. So, Uma Musume owes a lot to this game series.
THE IDOLM@STER STARLIT SEASON is the latest entry in the long-running series of Idolmaster games, and the gameplay, like the rest on this list, involves idol recruitment and management while also tackling rhythm games, which is a part that makes the series popular.
