over the hill launches with two regions: Canada and Algeria, each containing multiple areas. The demo showed only Emerald Lake, described as the opening area of The Valhallas, which is itself a region name from the demo announcement. Areas are connected by portals, which the Steam description confirms take you to a new area.
The single most common mistake here is arithmetic. The Canadian working-title areas, Emerald Lake, The Valhallas, Canada and Algeria are five names at three different levels — counting them does not produce five maps or six maps.
The three-tier terminology
The reference material uses a consistent hierarchy, and most confusion dissolves once the tiers are separated.
| Tier | What it means | Example |
|---|---|---|
| Region | A large geography | Canada, Algeria, The Valhallas |
| Area | A playable part inside a region | Emerald Lake |
| Portal | The transition between areas or regions | Takes you to a new area |
Region is the top level. Area is the unit you actually drive around in. Portal is the connection between them. An area belongs to a region, and a portal takes you out of the area you are in — which is why Emerald Lake cannot be a region and The Valhallas cannot be an area.
Canada in the January preview
In the 2026-01-23 Xbox Wire developer preview, hosted by Dune Casu, Canada was described as having three areas — all labelled as working title. The working-title flag is significant: these were names for areas still in development, not final labels.
| Working-title area | What the preview described |
|---|---|
| The Valley | Gentle ramps and rivers leading toward a lake; a place to learn driving basics |
| The Wetlands | Swamp, mud and rock-climbing terrain; more open-ended exploration |
| The Mountains | Steep climbs and snowy high ground; tests earlier driving skills |
The three form a progression rather than three unrelated maps. The Valley introduces, The Wetlands opens up, The Mountains tests — which is why they were presented together as one region's worth of content. The developers have said the launch contains more content than the demo, and Emerald Lake was the entirety of the demo.
Emerald Lake and The Valhallas
Emerald Lake is The Valhallas's opening area, and the demo contained only that. Reporting describes it as Canadian alpine in style, with fir forests, lakes and muddy trails. If you played the demo, everything you drove was inside one area of one region.
The Valhallas is a region name from the demo announcement, sitting one tier above Emerald Lake. The Norse-sounding name has no stated connection to the other regions in the available material, and no explanation of how Canada's regions relate to each other has been published.
Algeria and the second region
Algeria is the other launch region, and its inspiration is described as real locations. The reported content includes plateaus, ancient ruins, wind-eroded valleys and meteorites. That is a noticeably different terrain vocabulary from the Canadian areas, and the meteorites connect Algeria to the extraction and Pebbles systems directly.
Whether Algeria also has three areas is 待确认. The three-area structure was described for Canada specifically, in one preview, under working titles. No equivalent breakdown has been published for Algeria.
Portals, and the earlier ferry idea
The Steam description confirms that portals take you to a new area. That is the shipping mechanism. Separately, early design discussion mentioned boats and ferries as a transition — this is explicitly an early design description, not the final portal mechanic, and it should not be read as describing the release build.
The distinction is worth keeping because early design descriptions surface in older coverage alongside current information. Where a source predates the portal description, the ferry reference is a record of where the design was, not where it landed.
What the demo actually contained
The demo is the reason most name confusion exists, because it compressed several tiers into one release. It offered one map and one vehicle, and that single map was Emerald Lake. Everything the demo taught about the world applies to one area inside one region.
Demo reporting describes Emerald Lake as Canadian alpine in style, with fir forests, lakes and muddy trails, and the developers have stated that launch content is more than the demo's. So the demo is a sample, not a scale model — it showed roughly one area of a launch world that contains at least two regions.
You never know what you may discover just over the hill. — over the hill Steam store description
Reading the sources without merging them
Every name on this page comes from a different announcement, and the source matters as much as the name. Emerald Lake and The Valhallas come from the demo announcement. The three Canadian areas come from the 2026-01-23 Xbox Wire preview and are labelled working titles there. Canada and Algeria as launch regions come from release coverage, not the preview.
Keeping those three sources apart is the practical defence against bad arithmetic. A name from the demo announcement describes what was playable in June 2026. A name from the January preview describes planned structure with provisional labels. Neither is a launch manifest, and the developers have not published one.
The Supporter Pack map is not a playable area
The Supporter Pack includes a printable map. It is a physical product for use off-screen, and it does not add a playable area or unlockable region. Its contents are cosmetics, name tags, unique campsites, the printable map and wallpapers, priced at US$9.99.
If you are counting how much of the world is available, a printable map contributes nothing to the playable count. The launch content question is answered by the regions and their areas, not by what is in a supporter pack.
What remains unknown before release
The final count of areas and their final names are the biggest open items. All three Canadian names carry working-title labels, and the release build may name them differently — 待确认. Portal locations and any unlock conditions are also unstated; whether a portal is always open or gated is not something the available material answers.
Beyond those: whether Algeria has its own three-area structure, how The Valhallas relates to Canada as a naming tier, and how many areas each launch region contains in total. The developers have stated launch content exceeds the demo's, but no figure is published. Track all of it as open rather than filling the gaps with plausible-sounding numbers.