over the hill Review

over the hill comes from Funselektor, a small Canadian indie studio that most people know for Art of Rally. If you played that one, the tone here will feel familiar. The look is playful and minimal, the pace is relaxed, and the driving is simpler than it first seems.

This time the studio has swapped rally stages for open wilderness, and the starting kit tells you the idea: one off-road vehicle, a map, a compass and a winch. The first location is the Valhalla mountain range in Canada, a place the founder and creative director, Dune Casu, knows well. The second location is a desert in Algeria, and it could hardly be more different.

Between them, you get five maps to roam, and the game rests on one simple promise: pick a direction, go there, and see what turns up.

It also arrives when many driving games lean hard in one direction. Some serious sims get so realistic that they stop being fun, and some casual racers hand out rewards so quickly that you never taste them. over the hill goes the other way. Rewards come slowly enough to enjoy, the color is bright without being noisy, and everything is built around a shared journey. It is less a game about winning and more a mood.

If you have played SnowRunner or MudRunner, some ideas will feel familiar: winches, mud, steep hills, and physics with opinions. The job is different. Those games send you hauling cargo to damaged towns while you watch a fuel gauge. This one has no fuel, no cargo, no roads built by anyone, and nothing to fix. It asks where you want to go and leaves the answer to you.

over the hill has no story, and it helps to know that before you start. You get no leaderboards, no mission list barking directions, no waypoints, and no arrows. Everyone begins in the same spot in Emerald Lake, a region of Canada, and a guide character pops up early to explain the basics before leaving you alone.

The first real decision comes at a fork in the so-called road, which is often closer to a footpath. Heading east or west can change your whole route, and neither choice is wrong. A loop replaces a plot, and you slip into it quickly. You spot something in the distance, drive toward it, get distracted by something else, and end up somewhere you never planned to visit.

A lookout tower or reward marker might be your target, but nine times out of ten something else catches your eye first.

By then you are photographing a fox or camping on a hillside. The world feels set between the sixties and the eighties, judging by the older trucks and cassette tapes. Even the achievements show the intent: one rewards watching a sunrise, another driving a while with the music off. Further in, portals, or gateways like ferries and tunnels, carry you to the next map.

The real prize over the hill is often a view, or a log cabin waiting at the end of a long trail. The map is the backbone. It starts blank and fills in as you travel, with question marks appearing near points of interest. These can be a crate holding a cosmetic item, a scenic viewpoint, a recovery job, a ranger tower that reveals more surroundings, or distant ruins.

Once found, cabins and campsites become fast-travel points, and you can return to repair your vehicle and restock. A mechanic spot is always available to adjust your ride, and a merchant sells gear and upgrades. Each map covers roughly four kilometers by four, which feels like a proper trip without swallowing a session. The first map, the smallest and easiest, takes about four hours to finish, and you may still leave corners undriven.

Expect 30 to 40 hours to unlock everything in Over the Hill. Canada has three maps that climb gradually from a gentle valley to the snowy peaks of Asgard Mountain. Algeria adds two more and is a clear step up in difficulty, so you want an upgraded truck there. Canada brings rivers, waterfalls, gorges, woodlands, marshes, and lakes.

Algeria brings dunes, rocky ruins, a hidden oasis with a camel, and wooden walkways linking rock platforms.

Something can look meters away while you still work out how to reach it. You pick from a few 4x4 vehicles at the start, and over the hill, 21 trucks launch. It leans on older models: the Scout 800, the Land Rover Defender, several Land Cruisers, American SUVs and pickups, a few minivans, and a Unimog.

They fall into four types: wagon, workhorse, trail, and expedition, and differ in engine power, ride height, and length. Every truck is upgraded on its own, but cosmetics you unlock fit any of them. The driving sits between a simulator and an arcade game.

You have low and high gears, an optional manual gearbox, and simulated engine revs. Ice, mud, water, and rock each have their own friction, and suspension and damage are modeled quietly enough that none of it turns tedious. The steering lacks some sharpness, so tight turns and careful wheel placement need a light touch on the sticks.

The camera is locked to one view with no bumper or cockpit option, though you can adjust angle and zoom. The radial menu is the clunkiest part. After days of play, it still feels unnatural and can cost you a photo. Camping is one of the nicest systems. You can set up a campsite almost anywhere flat, recover, do a little vehicle repair, and move time forward, either to let a storm pass or wait for daylight.

Co-op in over the hill is online only, supports up to four players, and lets you join public or private lobbies.

You start a room by sharing a code. It runs smoothly, and you can talk while driving. You get up to five save slots, and discovery is tracked per player, so you'll want to stay together or have someone wait while the others catch up. More players mean more room for equipment, shared anchors and planks, and more help when you are stuck.

Consumable slots are limited, so you agree on who carries what. A second vehicle can act as a battering ram to nudge someone up a slope, and that person can anchor at the top and winch the rest up. It also means more cars that can slip off a cliff.

over the hill has no combat, so the challenge comes from terrain, weather, and tools. The winch is the core. You can hook it onto trees and stumps, and trees hold, so they work as solid anchors. You can place deployable winches within range to flip you upright or pull you out of a hole. Jacks turn you the right way up, planks bridge a crevasse, and repair kits restore health.

Your vehicle has one health bar rather than part damage, and if it empties, you are sent back to a camp, fully repaired. Luck matters too, since you might land on your wheels or roof after a fall, or your cable might catch a branch at the wrong angle.

Weather changes how it all plays out.

A climb that is easy under blue skies can turn messy in a blizzard with snow up to your engine bay, or in a sandstorm where you can barely see ahead. Rain and snow reduce grip. You plow through sand and snow, retrace your tracks, and wash your truck clean by crossing a river.

Recoveries are a favorite. You find an abandoned or broken-down vehicle, winch up to it, and tow it back to a cabin or another safe spot. Each map has a handful, mixing puzzle-solving with driving. They can be tough even when you are careful.

The challenge trails over the hill are the main missions. They are checkpoint routes through a narrow gorge, along a mountain pass, or around a technical perimeter that demands motorcycle-trial precision. No timer, no rating, and no saving partway. Some take minutes, some take half an hour, and the longest run, close to an hour, calls for a strong vehicle and the right tools.

You never know the length until the last checkpoint, which some players like and others hate. Harder trails usually pay with a new vehicle, while easier tasks give basic cosmetics. The first zone's final trial is a tense half-hour climb up a rocky mountainside, ending with a new truck and a sunset over the whole map. That is where the game clicks, since the first few hours can feel too easy. All trails can be done solo.

Winch chaining is the best part of the toolkit.

You can link all four players together, have several people pull on one, and conga-line vehicles and items. That is more flexible than what some similar games allow. The physics can be wonky. Occasionally a small part of your truck snags on the scenery and the vehicle ends up pointing straight up.

Winching to certain objects can stop you from driving up properly. In multiplayer, a fox can appear for one player but not for the others. Some tools and vehicles are also more useful than others, and the difficulty could go higher. In over the hill, pebbles stand in for experience. You collect them from crates, scenic points, finished tasks, wildlife photos, and meteorites, and spend them on engines, suspension, tires, inventory slots, and winch range.

The upgrade paths are simple and linear. A common routine is to take on the easiest tasks with a stock truck first, then tackle the harder ones. Going back to a basic truck after a fully upgraded one feels sluggish, with fewer winches and jacks, and it is tempting to return to your upgraded favorite.

Progress is slow. You can easily spend around fifteen hours in one truck before you have the pebbles and a reason to try another. Pebbles from a region cover only five or six fully upgraded trucks, so if you want every vehicle maxed, you need extra income.

You can watch a shooting star fall or spot an orange glow more easily at night.

Extract it with your winch to earn pebbles without touching main progress. They come in small, medium, and large sizes, and you need friends to winch the large ones together. They work well mixed in, but repeatedback-to-back, they feel thin, since they start landing in the same places and pay little. The developer said you can repeat challenge trails and recoveries for pebbles, which should help.

Wildlife photography is another. Each region has a scrapbook, and the animals aren't marked on the map. Deer, goats, camels, foxes, eagles, bears, elk, and even a Sasquatch can turn up. Some are rarer than others, and some are more active at night. A better shot lets you choose which animal to keep, and your pictures show up as Polaroids in the main menu. Do not scare animals off with headlights or the novelty horn.

Cosmetics fill out the rest: bash bars, skid plates, camping gear, kayaks, horns, bumpers, roll cages, and spare wheels. Placement adapts to the vehicle, so kayaks go on a roof rack on one truck and on another's flatbed. Driving 100, 200, or 500 kilometers unlocks liveries, and the mod lets you make your own.

over the hill looks low-poly and warm, with bright colors and simple textures. It doesn't chase realism, and the lighting does most of the work: hazy pink sunsets, overcast days, and heavy rain on a 24-hour cycle. Night gets properly dark, so headlights matter, or you hit a tree or drive off a cliff.

Snow builds up in real time, and the weather never stays static.

The photo mode has a huge number of sliders. The desert has less to work with and can feel subdued next to the mountains, and a few additions, like sculpted rock hands and the odd floating island, feel out of place. Performance is solid. You can run the highest preset with frame rates mostly steady at 60, with brief dips during dramatic weather.

The download is only about 4 GB. On a handheld, medium settings can hold 30 frames per second, and later updates can bring 55 to 60 with the camera on your vehicle and 35 to 40 when you look over a valley from a summit.

The audio stays out of your way. The music is ambient and laid-back, with soothing country guitar, and you can swap between cassettes in the truck. There are only a few tracks, so you may tire of them, but you can switch them off. Gravel crunches and mud squelches under the tires, and over the hill even has an achievement for driving a while with the music off.

Overall, the best thing about over the hill is its atmosphere. The sky, weather, and soundtrack work together, and the quiet sense of discovery can land harder than some story-driven games. It feels like video game meditation and asks you to slow down.

If spotting a far-off landmark and driving straight to it doesn't appeal to you, over the hill won't win you over.

It works alone, but it is better with friends, especially on the harder trails. Chaining winches, pushing each other up slopes, and rescuing each other from messes make for the best moments. Playing solo is fine, though you may find it less engaging. There are things to improve.

More locations would help, since each map is a new chapter. Exploring off the marked spots often leads to more wilderness, and unique sights, unmarked trails, or hidden pebble caches would add value. A bit more late-game content would give you another hook. The developers would like to add more maps and vehicles, though nothing is confirmed.