dailynewsnblog
This week I’ve been taking a break from playing too much of an open-world driving game by playing another open-world driving game. Listen, I love Forza Horizon 6, but it’s a lot. It’s a lot of content even before you’re trying to keep up with the (excellent) weekly Festival Playlist. It’s a lot of cars, a lot of notifications, a lot of options, a lot of rewards, a lot of other players. It’s noisy.
So a demo for Over the Hill landing in my inbox was perfect counterprogramming — if you can call it counterprogramming when it’s also about driving customizable vehicles around gorgeous landscapes. But Over the Hill, an off-road exploration game, is the anti-Forza Horizon. It’s minimalist and chill to the point of mindfulness. It’s just you in your chunky little 4×4, roving around a rugged wilderness because it’s there.
Over the Hill comes from Funselektor Labs (assisted by Strelka Games), the developer of the impeccably stylish retro rally game Art of Rally. Over the Hill shares Art of Rally‘s unlicensed but deliciously toylike renditions of classic cars from the late 20th century, like the Land Rover Defender (Protector), Toyota Land Cruiser (Roamer), and Mercedes G-Wagon (Sentinel). But Over the Hill is no kind of racing game. It’s purely about traversal and exploration, about reading the landscape and navigating your way through it.
Over the Hill reminds me more of the meditative rock-climbing games Jusant and Cairn, as well as Death Stranding‘s hiking sections and even the way The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild deals with traversing a natural environment in changing conditions. And sure, there’s some of Saber Interactive’s off-roading sims (Spintires, MudRunner, SnowRunner) in there as well, plus — thanks to a four-player online mode — the friendslop exploration of Peak and the upcoming Big Walk.
I haven’t tried Over the Hill online yet, but as a mind-cleansing solo gaming experience, it’s practically perfect. The demo provides you with one environment to explore: Emerald Lake, a Canadian Alpine landscape forested in fir, dotted with lakes and muddy trails climbing into mountainous terrain. It’s all rendered in warm, autumnal splashes of color with Funselektor’s trademark clean textures, characterful low-poly models, and moody, hazy lighting. It’s quite beautiful.
Structurally, Over the Hill is just about finding everything there is to find on the map. There are abandoned crates containing tasty cosmetic customizations for your truck: fenders, lights, roof racks packed with camping equipment or kayaks, spare wheels, shovels, you name it. There are trail challenges, scenic viewpoints, and item recovery missions; in the demo, you need to rescue a bogged-down Land Rover and tow it to a safe point. There are cabins that act as fast-travel points. And that’s it.
You’ll need those fast travel points when you get your vehicle stuck, which will happen. I drowned my engine in a river, floundered into a peat bog, slid down a muddy slope in the rain, beached my 4×4 on a big rock, and, most embarrassingly, just toppled it onto its side by bouncing down a bumpy track too fast. Sometimes you can winch your way out of these situations if there’s a tree near enough, but sometimes you can’t. You also need to consider the weather and time of day. There are tools available to clear the skies and camp overnight, but it’s exciting to experience the landscape in all its different moods, even if it can make the trail more challenging.
But Over the Hill isn’t too demanding or frustrating, on this map at least. Once you learn not to rush, to click down into low gear when you need to and pick your way along the trails with care, it’s relaxing and gently absorbing to play. It’s a game about being present in the environment, paying attention to your surroundings, and finding your way somewhere new. Just what I needed.
The Over the Hill demo is on Steam now. The full game will be released on Steam in 2026, with Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X versions to follow.
