over the hill developer games are Funselektor Labs Inc. and Strelka Games, and Funselektor Labs Inc. is also the publisher. The Steam store page lists both developers and names Funselektor as publisher. That is a two-studio credit rather than a solo project, and the split is not hidden behind an anonymous outsourcing label.
Who made over the hill
The store page credits two developers — Funselektor Labs Inc. and Strelka Games — and lists Funselektor Labs Inc. as the publisher. A separate launch-coverage listing repeats the same arrangement, naming Funselektor Labs as both developer and publisher. So the game ships under Funselektor's name while carrying a joint development credit.
The Funselektor series tag on the store page ties over the hill into an existing catalogue rather than a one-off. It sits alongside Absolute Drift, art of rally and Golden Lap as part of what the studio has put out before.
Funselektor's path to over the hill
The company's own timeline runs from a game jam to a four-game catalogue. It was founded in 2014, when Dune Casu built a prototype at a game jam that would become the studio's first game. Absolute Drift launched in 2015 as that first release. Work then began on the second game, art of rally, while Absolute Drift continued to receive support.
A management-simulating title, Golden Lap, arrived in 2024. That is the current studio line-up before over the hill, which is the first entry to move away from the studio's established racing framing in favour of exploration.
What comes before over the hill
Three prior games are named across coverage of the launch: Absolute Drift, art of rally and Golden Lap. Absolute Drift is the drift-focused debut from 2015. art of rally arrived afterwards and became the studio's best-known work, a top-down rally game with a strong critical reputation. Golden Lap shifted into management simulation in 2024.
The catalogue explains both the audience and the engine instinct. Ten years of vehicle physics work went into over the hill before a single off-road trail existed, which is why the driving is treated as the product rather than a wrapper.
art of rally built this audience
The reception around over the hill repeatedly routes through art of rally. Press coverage frames it as the same team changing pace rather than changing studio. PC Gamer put the driving itself at the centre of the praise:
Over the hill lands closer to real love of the wheel: Funselektor understands it in a way that an awful lot of studios miss.
Polygon compared the mood to other calm outdoor journeys, and gismoland described the game as an "anti-Forza Horizon". Polygon also drew the comparison line to Jusant, Cairn, Death Stranding and SnowRunner. Those are critics and peers describing a known team, not a debut.
Strelka Games' role
Strelka Games is described as a game production company that builds projects from the ground up. It frequently collaborates with other developers, sometimes leading a project from start to finish and sometimes adapting to a partner studio's direction. The team is made up of producers and developers with a broad professional network.
That second mode is the one that matters here. A partner-led structure, where one studio sets the direction and another executes production, matches how over the hill is credited — Funselektor's creative and publishing identity intact, Strelka's production capacity alongside it.
Why the combination is worth noting
Read the credit line as a division of labour. Funselektor supplies a decade of rally and driving feel, plus the art direction that defines the game's low-poly, toy-like look. Strelka supplies production scale — the kind of capacity that turns a prototype into a dated, cross-platform release. Two studios, one publisher, one release date.
The output the partnership has already produced is measurable. The demo ran on Steam from June 12 to June 22, 2026, and it drew a Very Positive rating with 81% of nearly 2,000 reviews. Wishlist milestones climbed from 200,000 at the first trailer in April 2025 to 1 million in April 2026 and 1.2 million after the June Next Fest demo.
How far the release has travelled
Interest is not speculative. According to SteamDB data relayed through GamingOnLinux, over the hill reached 21st place on Steam's all-time most-wishlisted chart. The demo was restricted to a single Canadian region with one vehicle, and it still converted — 500,000 players tried it, and 81% of nearly 2,000 reviews rated it Very Positive.
Physical editions are being handled by a third company, Serenity Forge, which will publish Collector's Edition and Premium Standard Edition versions for PlayStation 5 and Nintendo Switch 2. Xbox physical editions are not announced. Pre-orders for the physical versions are expected to open around the console release date announcement, after the PC launch.
A change of perspective and genre
over the hill is not another art of rally. Coverage is explicit that it is a third-person 3D explorable world with no track and no finish line, where art of rally was a top-down racer on defined circuits. The official tag line sums up the repositioning: "This is a driving game, not a racing game."
The camera change matters as much as the type change. A free-roaming world with no racing line to memorise is a different design problem from a rally stage, and it is the clearest signal that the studio was willing to leave its comfort zone.
Details still 待确认
Official retail pricing is unannounced — every source lists it as TBA or relays a third-party figure rather than an official one. macOS is still TBA, and the recommended-specs section names no specific CPU, GPU or RAM. Console timing also splits: the GamesPress announcement says PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S and Nintendo Switch 2 in 2026, while the store page and most coverage say 2027.
Team size for the project is 待确认, as is whether Dune Casu still leads the creative direction of over the hill specifically — the founder's history is documented, his involvement in this title is not. The development cycle is also unpublished; the public record shows roughly two years from the first trailer to launch, but no official duration figure exists. First launch regions are limited to Canada and Algeria, with more regions, free updates and paid DLC promised later.