--- title: "Over the Hill Preview: Virtual Off-Roading That Will Lower Your Blood Pressure" date: "2026-06-12" modified: "2026-06-12" authors: - name: "Adam Ismail" job_title: "Senior Editor" link: "https://www.thedrive.com/authors/adam-ismail" url: "https://www.thedrive.com/news/over-the-hill-preview-virtual-off-roading-that-will-lower-your-blood-pressure" categories: - "Culture" - "News" - "Video Games" --- # Over the Hill Preview: Virtual Off-Roading That Will Lower Your Blood Pressure ![Screenshot from Over the Hill of two trucks driving]() *\Strelka Games\* When *Art of Rally* creator Dune Casu announced his next project, *[Over the Hill]()*, I was excited. Full disclosure: I'm horrendous at *[Art of Rally]()*, but pairing that game's refined and calming visual palette with overlanding, ideally somewhere remote and serene, just made all the sense in the world to me. Today, a public demo goes live for the game, and we've been playing it over the last week. *Over the Hill* begins with a brief tutorial that will be very familiar to anyone who has played games like *[Snowrunner]()* or *Spintires*. The objective is to familiarize yourself with toggles for crucial items, like high and low gearing and your truck's winch, to overcome the varied challenges that terrain throws at you. Frankly, I was surprised how similar *Over the Hill* feels in these moments to those aforementioned titles, but then I suppose there are only so many ways to assemble an off-roading experience. The critical difference, though, is that *Over the Hill's* energy is less "Ice Road Truckers" and more C418's *Minecraft* soundtrack. Also, while you will pull helpless fellow explorers out of the ruts they've gotten themselves into in this game, at least in this demo, there weren't really any complicated, multi-part jobs, requiring you to accept a contract and *then* set about fulfilling it. *Over the Hill* feels more dynamic and freeform than that. Open up your map, drop a waypoint on a point of interest, and see what you find. It could be a useful item or tool, a cabin (basically the map's fast-travel hubs), or a task. And I personally appreciate the lack of friction. ![]() ![]() You can do all of this together or alone—and that's also true of the demo. My fellow PC gamer here at *The Drive*, Byron, rolled out with me to explore Emerald Lake, one of the three sub-areas within the game's Canada region, inspired by The Valhallas in British Columbia. We've heard that the difficulty and technique required ramps up in the later maps, but Emerald Lake starts you off smoothly, with wide-open valleys bearing tall grass and few trees. It's a good choice for the demo. That's not to say you can't get yourself into trouble, and, outside of rare cases where the physics did something I wasn't quite expecting them to, the actual act of driving feels good and, frankly, not terribly different than in *Snowrunner*. Naturally, when the going gets tough, low gears are your friend; though, unlike in *Snowrunner*, you don't have to worry about locking diffs. Also, in *Over the Hill*, it takes longer than you'd expect to flood an engine, maybe 10 seconds. Ask me how I know. ![]() ![]() ![]() The biggest issue both Byron and I encountered in this demo was performance. On paper, *Over the Hill* should be a relatively light lift: an AMD Ryzen 5 2600 CPU and Nvidia GTX 1070 GPU are the minimum listed specs on the game's [Steam page](). My rig has a Ryzen 7 5800X3D and Radeon 9070 XT, and at 1440p resolution, the framerate constantly wavered and crashed to some astonishing lows. Strangely, both of us found that when we ventured away from trees on the map, things cleared up dramatically, so perhaps this is a bug the devs can stamp out quickly, especially now that the game is about to be tested on many different kinds of builds. ![]() ![]() While roaming nature, I kept asking myself what *Over the Hill's* unique selling point could be. I mean, sure—it's got that minimalist art style going for it, and an obviously chill vibe, but it's not like *Snowrunner* isn't similarly therapeutic in the right mindset. Then, I reached the waypoint I'd set on a dark end of the map, and a view I didn't expect—mountain peaks breaking away to the sides, and a glass blue lake stretching into the horizon in front of me. I don't ever remember sights like that stopping me cold in other off-roading games, and that is why I'm excited to learn what other discoveries *Over the Hill* has in store for all of us when the full release drops later this year. ![]() ![]() ![]() *Got a tip? Reach out to tips@thedrive.com* ## Author Adam is a Senior Editor at The Drive, concentrating on curating and developing the site's slate of daily journalism, from initial pitch to final copy edit. When he's not at his desk researching leads and working with writers, he's testing vehicles or reviewing racing games, new and old. He joined The Drive in 2023, following seven years of covering consumer technology and cars. A car lover and gamer since his earliest memories, Adam came to know the automotive world through video games. First it was Daytona USA, Sega Rally, and Ridge Racer; then came Need For Speed, which inspired an encyclopedic knowledge of '90s supercars, and, of course, Gran Turismo. If not for them, he'd assuredly be doing something else right now. Adam is based in the suburbs outside Philly, where there are ample roads for his hot hatch to stretch its legs. In his car, he's probably listening to indie rock, drum and bass, or Yankees baseball. ### Author social links [Bluesky]() [Instagram]() [LinkedIn]()