Game itself is great, probably the best modern rally game out there. The PROBLEM is EA's implementation of anti-cheat which broke the game. A game which ran great at launch and had Steam Deck compatibility is now a broken mess even on a Windows PC after the AC update. Hours of troubleshooting, reinstalling the game on C: drive, modifying permissions, verifying files, etc. and the game is still unstable with frequent crashes.

EA's attempt to mitigate piracy is driving paying customers to pirate the game just to play the game they paid for. They shot themselves in the foot on this one.

Overall this game has been a huuge let down, and this is coming from a mad DR 2.0 player here and huge supporter of Codemasters in those days.

Here are the positives first
- The modern WRC spec classes are in, and many parts of real life stages are too.
- Stages are longer at max length compared to DR 2.0, thats really fun to settle in to a stage and rely on the notes.
- You can reconnect your controller mid game, even mid stage I believe. (should something happen)
- Pacenotes are definitely better and more consistent than before.
- The clutch nanny can be properly disabled, letting you stall in sequential cars.
- Some of the car behaviour was improved, esp tarmac grip levels and response.
- Sounds are still mighty impressive.
- There was a free RallyTV subscription at release time if you completed some tiny event, that was really nice.

Now for the plethora of NEGATIVES in no particular order:

Blocker (for some)
- Months AFTER release EA decided to address cheating with EA Anti Cheat, a kernel level tight a** code that won't even let you play with a slightly older Win 10 ver, or an unsigned joystick emulation driver (or obviously on linux etc).

Driveability/Playability
- The turbo cars in the game and even modern WRC cars have NO POWER below like 6500rpm. It's like they have some kind of old NA Honda motorcycle engines.
- The throttle curve is terrible, the cars in general react with enough juice on gravel only at around 90% throttle and above.
- There is no way to tweak the co-driver notes, no way to adjust a txt file or to go through a UI editor for the notes.
- No recce mode exits. (massive part of rally)
- Career mode is an absolute joke, with it repeating everything every year of competition (events, car combos, even stages) No replayability, SP has little depth in the entire game.
- The game has HORRIBLE FPS and FPS stability per watt of your CPU/GPU useage. It does not utilize CPU cores too well and is generally craptastic bloatware. (Big brain move to UE from EGO engine is the cause I'd say.) This has caused many side effects you can read about below.
- Driving around on tarmac feels like a hovercraft. (try croatia) It is ultra smooth. Overall the game feels way too smooth in the cabin. (Driving rally cars on countryside tarmac isn't smooth y'all.)
- Similar to above, head shaking and the car generally absorbing hits from the ground (cabin/hood shake) can barely be perceived in EAWRC when compared to DR2.0 which was brilliant in this respect.
- Track IR support was removed.
- Again a year after release, and there are still massive cuts possible. No macro system seems to be in development to address cuts generally.
- Massive lag on twin charged classics.

Useability/Other
- The UI is absolutely laughable and frustrating, causing you to lose time clicking way too many times even compared to 2.0, in a disorganized, uncohesive set of menus, which incidentally also place the most important menu banner at the very bottom where your wheel rim will likely block it's view.
-- Even scrolling through the control inputs is wonky.
- Still limited to 8 setup slots per surface type, with many more events now present, this is another joke.
- EA doesn't seem to take too much community feedback and turn it into action, and where they do it's a 5% attempt and poorly done, like repairing the hybrid system.
- No feature to share setups, export/import them.
- UDP output is lacking a vast amount of needed data, like manifold pressures, engine temps or lights etc so you can replace the in game HUD

UNrealistic
- They implemented the Hybrid system for the current gen of WRC cars in the most simplistic and incorrect way you could think of. I think turbo mode form Mario Kart was a better match for the hybrid system. And after being given extensive feedback on what's wrong and how to fix it days after release, its still not fixed and even one of the changes made to prevent boost timing out off throttle left it on a timer that times out. :D No joke.
- They have left a russian flag in the game despite that being banned in the FIA series for many years due to the doping scandal and other shenanigans by russians in sport. And with the icing of the current invasion too... and after this was reported, they STILL did not remove the flag, because, EA wants russian player money. They don't care about fairness in sport, drug abuse, or innocent lives.
- There is still no way to visually analyze tyre tread wear on the car itself, or to stick on specific tyres on to specific wheels and to rotate your spares in.
- Many things that were destructible in the past now are not, like signs etc, and the extra performance calcs are why. (UE again)
- Jump physics still do not take into account angular momentum/spinning masses.
- Gearing is fully opened contrary to FIA regulations, and reality. You also can increase the top ratio overall to exceed 240 or 250km/h in WRC cars, which is stupid and wouldn't be permitted in rallies.
- The grip is excessive and top power too, it's possible to beat top level real drivers in WRC cars by about a minute or more on a long stage. Breaking the laws of physics.
- Still not possible to get stuck in a ditch or especially in deep snow, you always have a magic tank grip out of deep stuff, even in 2wd.
- Cars nose diving and dipping back under accel even with softest susp settings is still lacking (not enough movement can be seen)

Visuals
- The weather effects are mostly abysmal, no doubt because they can't deal with the FPS hit in this engine, and because they also lost some control they had in EGO.

All in all a great game.
If you enjoyed any of the DiRT Rally titles you will enjoy this one.
Stages feel amazing and more detailed/creative compared to Dirt Rally.

Downsides:
Kinda crappy performance on older systems, I kind of expected it to be on par with DiRT Rally 2.0 but I've lost a bunch of frames on the same settings compared to DR2.0, Be prepared to turn stuff down if you're rocking older hardware.

Theres a random bonk noise coming from the car sometimes from behind you on the right, and it literally sounds like somebody bonks your door IRL and it creeps you out while you have to focus on the pacenotes lol

UI isn't great but you're not here for the menu anyways..