Recent reviews by Extraa

I’ve been playing CarX Street since launch and I’ve always stood behind what this game can be. At its core, it’s a genuinely fun and unique driving sandbox. The driving physics are satisfying for the most part, the car customization is deep, the open-world free roam works well, and the community around tuning, drifting, and builds is incredibly passionate.

I’ve put over 1,300 hours into this game; tuning setups, grinding Time Attack ranks, creating Youtube content to help other players, and actively promoting the title. That alone should make it clear that I don’t dislike this game. In fact, I still recommend it, but with realistic expectations.

As a car-building sandbox with free roam, multiple playstyles, and creative freedom, CarX Street is genuinely great. If you want to build cars, drift with friends, cruise, experiment with setups, and enjoy a casual open-world driving experience, it punches well above its weight.

However, the longer you spend with the game, especially as a committed player, the more the cracks start to show.

The biggest ongoing issue is development direction and communication. The dev team consistently struggles with:
- Poor communication with the community
- Not listening to long-term players or creators
- Implementing unwanted changes and features instead of bug fixes or solutions
- Major bugs introduced with new updates
- Stability and performance issues
- Server connection problems
- Persistent cheating that goes largely unaddressed

These problems have been around for a long time, and despite community feedback, they continue to resurface with every major update.

Cheating & Modding

The introduction of Easy Anti-Cheat (EAC) and Epic Games Services was the moment where trust really took a hit. Introducing kernel-level anti-cheat into a game like this feels excessive and misplaced. More importantly; it hasn’t even solved the problem it was meant to fix.

- Ranked Time Attack and Drift leaderboards are still flooded with modded cars
- Controller macros and cheat menus remain common
- Meanwhile, harmless QoL tools like ReShade are blocked
- Legitimate creators and players are restricted
- Cheaters continue with little visible action taken
- While legitimate players and creators face increasing restrictions, enforcement appears selective, with paid cheat developers and commercial mod menu services continuing to operate openly.

The EAC integration has proven ineffective where it matters most, and disruptive where it shouldn’t be, and has ultimately been a pointless and lazy fix to the cheating issue that has been plagueing the game since launch. Easy Anti-Cheat and Epic Online Services operate at a kernel level, which grants them deep system access well beyond simple game file verification. These systems evaluate runtime behaviour, player engagement, player behaviour profiles, input consistency, memory interactions, and environmental conditions to flag potential outliers. While this approach is widely used in competitive eSports titles, its implementation in a sandbox-focused game like CarX Street feels disproportionate, particularly when the cheating it was meant to address remains largely unresolved, it makes you question their reasoning behind introducing it at all.

Modding

With each update, mods are effectively broken. To their credit, the devs have been working on a solution to make sure this doesn't happen, but the experience remains fragile and frustrating.

- Mods frequently break with updates
- The designated mod folder still doesn’t work properly
- Constant workarounds are required
- Maintaining content has become exhausting

It’s hard to trust a team that publicly claims to support modding, while repeatedly implementing systems that undermine it. If you've come from other CarX or racing titles were the community heavily revolves around mods to improve the game, it's not present here.

AI Content... Another disappointing aspect is the heavy use of AI-generated content, particularly in the story mode.
- The entire story is AI voice acted
- Loading screens feature cars and taillights that don’t exist in-game
- None of this is disclosed before purchase

The result is a story mode that feels lifeless and disconnected. I pushed through it purely for rewards, not because it was engaging. For a game built on car culture and passion, this approach feels cheap and soulless.


Despite all of that, the core gameplay is still excellent.

- The driving feel is fun
- Car building and tuning is deep
- Free roam multiplayer is still a blast
- Drift lobbies remain some of the most enjoyable casual experiences in the genre
- The map is immersive and full of life
- The sounds are very impressive, for the most part
- The game has a lot of personality compared to other racing games

This is why I keep coming back. This is why so many players stick around despite the issues.

If you’re looking for:
- A fun open-world street racer
- A car-building sandbox
- Casual drifting and free roam with friends
CarX Street still delivers.

I do recommend CarX Street, with clear warnings.

If you’re buying at full price: Do your research, watch recent videos, look at the current state of updates and community sentiment

If it’s on sale though? It’s definitely worth grabbing
Just go in with the right expectations

The devs have openly stated in community meetings that resources are being pulled from CarX Street to support the mobile version, which is also important to keep in mind for the future.

CarX Street remains one of the most enjoyable driving sandboxes available today, but its update direction raises serious red flags for long-term players. Instead of fixing foundational issues, updates often punish legitimate players and creators who have supported the game from day one.

It’s still a great game at its core.
But it’s also a game you should approach with caution, context, and realistic expectations.

This game used to be amazing, it's not anymore.