Over the Hill Preview: A Virtual Off-Roading Experience to Reduce Your Stress Levels

      Strelka Games

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      When Dune Casu, creator of Art of Rally, announced his new project, Over the Hill, I felt a surge of excitement. To be honest, I’m not very skilled at Art of Rally, but combining its soothing and polished visual style with the concept of overlanding—especially in a remote, tranquil setting—seemed absolutely fitting. Today, a public demo is launching for the game, and we've been testing it out over the past week.

      Over the Hill starts with a quick tutorial that should feel familiar to fans of games like Snowrunner or Spintires. The aim is to get accustomed to essential controls, such as high and low gearing and your truck’s winch, to tackle the various challenges posed by the terrain. I was honestly surprised at how closely Over the Hill resembles those other games in this regard, but I suppose there are only so many approaches to creating an off-roading experience.

      The key distinction, however, is that Over the Hill offers a vibe that's less reminiscent of “Ice Road Truckers” and more akin to the tranquil Minecraft soundtrack by C418. Additionally, while you will assist fellow drivers stuck in difficult spots, at least in this demo, there aren’t any complex, multi-task jobs requiring you to accept contracts before getting to work. Over the Hill provides a feeling of spontaneity and freedom; you simply open your map, mark a point of interest, and see what you discover. It might be a useful item, a cabin (functioning as fast-travel points), or a task. I personally appreciate this lack of friction.

      The selection of vehicles at launch seems to be rather limited, focusing more on civilian vehicles than large trucks or anything with more than two axles. There are also some neat tools available, like the option to place an anchor for a winch or set down planks wherever your grip is insufficient.

      You can tackle the game either solo or with others—this holds true for the demo as well. My fellow PC gamer at The Drive, Byron, and I ventured out to explore Emerald Lake, one of the three sub-areas in the game’s Canada region, inspired by The Valhallas in British Columbia. We’ve been told that the difficulty and required skills increase in the latter maps, but Emerald Lake eases you in nicely, featuring expansive valleys with tall grass and sparse trees—an ideal choice for the demo.

      That’s not to say trouble isn’t possible, and aside from rare instances where the physics behaved unexpectedly, the actual driving experience feels solid and is not markedly different from Snowrunner. Naturally, when things get tough, low gears are essential; however, unlike Snowrunner, you don't need to worry about locking differentials. Additionally, in Over the Hill, it takes longer than you might think to flood an engine—around 10 seconds. Trust me, I know.

      In the complete version of the game, this boat will transport you to another area within the Canada environment.

      The main issue both Byron and I faced in the demo was performance. By all accounts, Over the Hill should be relatively light on resources: the minimum requirements on its Steam page state an AMD Ryzen 5 2600 CPU and Nvidia GTX 1070 GPU. My setup includes a Ryzen 7 5800X3D and Radeon 9070 XT, and at 1440p, the framerate frequently dropped dramatically. Interestingly, we both noticed that the performance improved significantly when we moved away from forested areas on the map, so this might be a bug the developers can fix quickly, particularly since the game is about to undergo testing on a wide variety of systems.

      There’s a photo album feature where you can collect wildlife pictures!

      While exploring nature, I kept wondering what Over the Hill’s unique selling point might be. Sure, it features a minimalist art style and a relaxed atmosphere, but Snowrunner can also be quite calming in the right frame of mind. Then, I reached the waypoint I had set near a dark part of the map, revealing a breathtaking view—mountain peaks flanking either side and a shimmering blue lake extending into the horizon in front of me. I can't recall being so taken aback by the scenery in other off-roading games, and that's why I'm eager to discover what other surprises Over the Hill has in store for us all when the full release arrives later this year.

      Developer Funselektor has stated that every map in this game is handcrafted, with no procedural generation involved.

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