What is Overpass?

Overpass is not a racing game in any conventional sense. Swedish developer Zordix Racing built something closer to a terrain puzzle wrapped in the chassis of an off-road sim. You pick a UTV or ATV from a roster of licensed machines - Yamaha, Polaris, Arctic Cat, Suzuki among them - and the goal is never to outrun a rival. It is to survive the course. Scree slopes, steep inclines, weighted bridges, log obstacles, and deep mud all stand between you and a clean time. Managing your two-wheel versus four-wheel drive toggle, knowing when to lock or open your differential, reading approach angles before you commit - these decisions matter more than throttle input. When that system clicks, there is a genuinely meditative satisfaction to it, something unhurried and deliberate in a genre that almost always rewards aggression. The career mode gives you a season structure: attract sponsors, manage your vehicle roster, organise your calendar, and chase gold, silver, or bronze target times across a varied set of courses. Quick Race and Custom Race let you skip the scaffolding and just drive. Online multiplayer supports up to eight players, and local split-screen is present too, which is rarer than it should be at this point. The track variety is decent, with environments spanning different terrain types and scale. The core loop rewards restarts - finding a cleaner line, shaving a few seconds, understanding why your last run went wrong. For that kind of player, Overpass has a genuine pull. But the game does carry some real friction worth knowing about going in. The tutorial is long and tonally flat - the in-race audio has been widely noted as inconsistent, with engine sounds that can feel more like background drone than immersive feedback. Vehicle damage persists across stages, which can compound frustration if you have already had a rough run. The physics, while often impressive in how they simulate terrain response, have moments of inconsistency - the same braking line that worked fine one run will catch you out the next. Some reviews pointed to a lack of tactile weight in the vehicle feel, which matters a lot in a game asking you to read terrain through your inputs. Who is this for? Honestly, a narrow but specific kind of player: someone who finds Spintires-style slow-crawl traversal compelling, who enjoys the puzzle of approach angles over the adrenaline of speed, and who has patience for a game that penalises every shortcut and flags missed. Casual racing fans will likely find it unrewarding. Off-road enthusiasts and sim-minded players willing to sit with the learning curve will find something with real texture underneath the rough edges. The career mode is shorter than its structure implies, and the absence of a true free-roam mode is a missed opportunity, but as a niche experience that takes its sport seriously, Overpass earns its place on the shelf for the right person.

Kai · Scout Team

Indie & narrative

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