The wise man once said that opinions are like our souls. Everyone has one, and today I'm going to give my opinion on all 11 maps officially released for our arch-survival evolved. I'm going to be brutally honest, and as any arch player knows, arch-survival evolved has more bugs than the Amazon rainforest, but I still love it. I've personally played arch since day one of its release, and at the time there was nothing quite like it. I was heavily into the daisy, epoch mod at the time, but this new type of survival game was everything that I hoped it would be. So even though I'm going to list all of the maps from worst to my personal favourite, I still want to state that I love this game and all of its DLC. Each map did introduce something different, whether or not it's a new creature or a new biome, and even the maps I wasn't keen on, there's paved the way for community-made maps that have been absolutely fantastic. So let's begin with my countdown, and in at number 11 and my least favourite arch map is Genesis Part 1. Oh dear, so first thing you notice when you load up this map is you're greeted with a cash shop, with a menu you can access, giving you all of the resources you will need for an exchange of tokens. The difference between buying some crystal means not having to search for your first buy-gast, all of this stuff breaks the early game and I love the early game of arch, it doesn't matter what map I play on, I love leveling up from level 1. This is immersion-breaking and has no place in a survival game. The next thing I dislike with a passion is the teleport and ability. Genesis 1 is a series of 5 mini maps and there's no need to embark on any adventure with a creature as you can just teleport anywhere. And this in turn means that you can't build everywhere, and the fact that the missions require some space also means that building is very limited on this map. If you end up playing Genesis on a server with a group of friends, you will see that everybody just builds on top of everybody else because there's hardly anywhere you can build. And next, let's just touch upon the missions themselves. At no point is it fun to play 0G Bulldog Basketball, or race a man to like a jet ski through hoops like some 90s Nintendo game. Now had we been given the options to make our own events and things that we could craft to make our own basketball arenas, I would have been all for it, but they made these missions mandatory. They had to be done 10 times for each level, so effectively 30 times each mission and some of these missions were absolutely untested and impossible to complete. My opinion is that Genesis isn't really a survival game, but a throwback to games on the old Nintendo like Pilot Wings and Super Mario 64. I want to give it some positives before we move on, so I guess... I like the Bloodstalker and the Magmastore, and the biomes look fantastic with the swamp biome being among my favourite. I never thought I would want to build in swamp, but it looks absolute quality. The Luna biome also has this moment of beauty, so it's not all bad, it's just not a map you want to build on or spend very much time on. And that brings me to Genesis Part 2, so we've put this one in at number 10. Again, we have the same cash shop on the options when you spawn in. They kept the stupid missions only doubling down on it this time, forcing you to do specific missions to change the condition of the map itself. They said they listened to the community and gave us a huge map, but it just seems like the same landscape repeated. Essentially with three different biomes and an underwater area, it goes one point higher for keeping the map as one, but I'm going to take that point back for starting with tech. Genesis Part 1 is just a bunch of mini games that are all linear, some of them are on rails. I'm definitely reminded of the game Space Harrier from the 1980s whenever I get onto the Dolphin mission and have to save the Genesis ship. Get ready! A mission that you're going to be playing a minimum of 30 times. For me personally, Genesis Part 1 and 2 are the last maps I would bother to play. So in at number 9 we start getting into the better maps and I'm sure many of you would place the Crystal Isles a lot higher than I have, but I have to sadly place it near the back. Having played this map before the official release, I'll always feel that Wildcard removed a lot of the creatures that gave this map a special fantasy feel. The Crystal Wyverns are a great addition, but most of the artifacts are unguarded. In fact, it feels like a barren map with very few creatures spawning properly. So it's a shame Wildcard changed as much as they did for its main release. If it had been balanced better and the spawns were properly then I would place this map a lot higher in my category, but sadly Wildcard rushed it and cut out a lot of what made it so special in the first place. In at number 8 we're putting Valguero, I admit that this is a map that I didn't play too much of, but for the most part it worked. There were a few TV problems in the beginning with the Ice Wyverns and the Dynonicas tending to over spawn, but all in all this was a well-balanced map having elements from aberration and some really interesting ideas for caves and artifacts, a solid entry and still a map worth checking out. In at number 7 we have scorched Earth, at the time it was a controversial release as arc was still in early access. The island map still wasn't quite finished when this official cannon DLC came out. I personally felt that this great expanse of desert and the June sea which made for a never ending ocean of sand was a refreshing take along with the introduction of dragons. To this day they never added a cutscene for leaving the map, which is a huge loss for those of us that enjoy the lore and for that reason it still feels unfinished. The map offers new weapon mechanics with heat and sand storms, with so many of the maps now offering dragons and desert it's less relevant, but I still enjoy this map and following the journey of the original survivors and progressing from the island to scorched Earth, is still a great challenge and it's still worth playing. Six spot I'm throwing to the center map, it was the first 3 DLC map and the first of arcs now many mod inspired maps to win a place as an official download. It was largely inspired by the island map assets so lacks the dragons and desert biomes and as it is it's the only 3 DLC map not to have an exclusive creature. It did introduce fireflies making both day and night more beautiful and it is the only other DLC map other than the island with any steam achievements. Taking 5 spot for me is extinction, it's the most complete map since the island featuring 4 bosses and at the time it answered a lot of questions we all had about the arcs. Although many don't like the small pro-o arcs I felt it fitted well with the lore of arc, it did bring some game changing mechanics and new creatures but all in all a must play map, just maybe not the first map that you should play. Getting to the top 4 maps now and aberration doesn't get the love it deserves, a very hard map where you were unable to use flying mounts and everything wants to kill you. I appreciate this map a lot more now than at the time, essentially it's a giant cave and the deeper you go the tougher both the creatures and elements get. On the surface the sun rays exposure sets fire to the earth beneath the obelisks and on this broken arc it's only accessible at night time. It's another must play for the more experienced arc player. Ok so now we're getting to my top 3 arc maps and a difficult decision that's all great from this point. These next 3 maps are choices for multiplayer servers as well as solo players both new and old and any of the maps previous to this list I consider a compliment to a cluster but not a starting point. Third place is going to go to Ragnarok and it's only the release of the new Lost Island map that's knocked it back a position for me. It's a huge map for a server with both aspects of the island map and scorched earth. It has some challenging caves with mini bosses and overall it's a well balanced map. It did get an exclusive creature that griffin but that's since made its way onto some other maps. So in second place I'm going to give it to the Lost Island. I didn't expect it as there wasn't much there in the mod map before its release. The sheer amount of trees and jungle covering this map will push your pc to its limits but right now it's the perfect map to play on a community server. I will be doing a Lost Island run over on Twitch in my spare time so if you're interested drop me a follow down there. So that means my first place choice goes to the island map and why not it has 4 bosses, 8 caves and it's just dinosaurs. There are tech creatures but primarily we have things that just walk the earth at different points in history and that makes it more special. It's the first map you should play and the map everyone should come back to. It's times less is more but I do have to give an honorable mention to Fjordor. As it currently stands it's a top free map, knocking one of these maps down a place. It has everything but wildcard could pull it to pieces and just like the Crystal Isles this final release could be pulled apart. I can't give my opinion on what I don't have but I remain confident that Arc 1 goes out with a bang and delivers the best 3 DLC map yet. And that's my Arc map ranking if you're looking for a new map to try or even where to begin as a new player. I hope you found it useful and feel free to mention your own personal favourite Arc maps in the comments. There's no wrong answer here and in the end all of these maps expanded on a game that we all love. A huge thanks to my patrons for supporting the channel and if you're new here and made it this far then consider subscribing for more Arc content from myself. But until next time I'm James from Complete Games and I'll see you.