Over the Hill's Next Fest demo promises a stylized off-roading game for people who actually like to drive

I was never able to get a feel for Funselektor's top-down driving game Art of Rally, or its predecessor Absolute Drift: I like rally in real life, but sliding cars around corners at screaming speeds from a weird perspective and with no tactile feedback just didn't work for me. I had higher hopes for the slower pace of the studio's upcoming Over the Hill, and after trying the demo that dropped today with the start of the Steam Next Fest, I am very happy to say that yeah, this is the one.

Over the Hill is a very stylized take on off-roading: You're not going to find high-fidelity mud here, or detailed first-person views from behind the wheel. It's really more about the broader experience of being 'out there,' going slow, taking your time, and thinking about how you're going to get where you want rather than just hammering on it. You can hammer on it if you want, and it'll carry you for a while, and also likely put you over onto your roof when you're not expecting it.

The game world itself is very much like that too: Not realistic, but evocative in a way that I think makes it more powerful—a bit like Firewatch in that regard, and in visual style too, at least for this demo. This playable portion is set in a beefy chunk of Canadian wilderness, and while Funselektor emphasized that it's still "a work in progress," there's a lot to see and do.

Trails of different types lead to points of interest where you'll find customization items and in-game currency, there are cabins that serve as save points, "challenge trails" wait to test your patience and precision, and scenic lookouts provide an opportunity to just kick back and enjoy the view, and play with the game's photo mode if that's your thing.

You can (and surely will) also leave the trailers completely and just go bombing around wherever you want, within the limits of your vehicle's capabilities, which—as an entry-level machine—are pretty limited indeed. But that's also how you find the interesting stuff: The map will guide you to nearby POIs, but it can be a lot more fun to just get out there and see what comes up.

It's probably wise to play it a little safe until you've got some of those cabins unlocked, though. The first time I fired up Over the Hill I found and immediately embarked on a challenge trail that led me across some rocks to a gorgeous waterfall, and I was this close to completing it when I misread the trail, ended up in the water, and drowned my engine. The only checkpoint I had at that stage was the one at the very beginning, so—right back to the start I went.

See that very narrow rock trail in front of the falls? Good luck.

But even those long slogs can be almost hypnotic. During another session I came across a vehicle stranded in a bog, and spent more than 30 minutes trying to pull it out. I came so close, so many times, and I kept telling myself one more shot from this angle and I'm done, and then I kept trying—until, well, I got a little rammy, ended up in the nearby lake, drowned my engine, and whoops. Now we're both stuck.

(I later found a trail that led me to the stuck vehicle from the other side of the bog, and pulled it out with relative ease. Live and learn.)

It wasn't all misfortune and failure. A drive up to a distant fire tower left me hung up on a boulder: After a few minutes of gunning the engine and reefing the wheel I was ready to reset, but decided it was time to finally take a dig through Over the Hill's toolbox. Turned out there was a portable winching point in there, similar to a piton but big enough to yoink a car around. I was able to pull off the boulder, and after a few more stressful moments but no full-on catastrophes, I made it to the top. (And then forgot to take a picture. Isn't that always the way?)

This one, well, I did not get out of. But I also have to admit that trying to drive out to the end of a very narrow, rickety dock was probably not my best idea.

Over the Hill has a day-night cycle that works really well. The game world becomes a very different kind of beautiful over long distances, but this isn't one of those pretend-nights in videogames where the skybox is dark but you can still see: You're gonna need your headlights if you want to keep driving.

One thing I realized after playing Over the Hill for a good while is that I'd put my truck into low gear range—slow, but better for climbing rocks and powering through muck—and then just left it there. Yes, it was taking me longer than necessary to traverse the game's safer areas, but I hadn't noticed because slow and meditative is what Over the Hill is all about. Even after I clocked that I was basically crawling when I could've been cruising, I left it alone—apart from being a more relaxing way to travel, running in low gear had the added practical benefit of keeping me from high-speed bouncing my dumb self into roadside trees and rocks.

Along with singleplayer exploration, Over the Hill supports multiplayer for up to four drivers at once. I took it for a very brief spin, mostly just so I could say that I did, and it's very easy to set up and connect with other players. As for the actual exploration, I didn't do extensive testing but it looks more or less identical to singleplayer, except you've got other people around—handy if you need to be hauled out of some self-inflicted trouble.

How the full game holds up is an open question, but the demo sets a great tone. (Speaking of which, Over the Hill's music is excellent too: Not as deep a soundtrack as that other great fantasy driving sim, Pacific Drive, but a soothing, gentle backdrop to the demo's quiet isolation.) A lot of driving games, like the upcoming Clutch, like to churn excitement about "the connection between car and driver, and the raw thrill of speed," but for my money Over the Hill lands closer to real love of the wheel: Funselektor understands it in a way that an awful lot of studios miss.

The Over the Hill demo is live now and will remain up until the end of the Steam Next Fest on June 22. A release date hasn't been announced but it's expected to be out later this year.

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