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 Over the Hill is perfect counterprogramming — if you can call it counterprogramming when it's also about driving customizable vehicles around gorgeous landscapes.

Over the Hill, an off-road exploration game, is in many ways the anti-Forza Horizon. It's minimalist and chill to the point of mindfulness. It's just you in your chunky little 4x4, 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 or the the brilliant Big Walk .

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