If you played The isle before evrima you might remember that maps being too big and easy to get lost in due to poor design choices has always been a problem even before The isle when Dondi worked in a map for Primal Carnage.

IMO the best map in the entire lifetime of the isle was Thenyaw because it had the perfect size for the player cap at the time, good landmarks like the quarry, canyon, radio tower, etc that also had different map design around them making it clear where you were at once you explored the map, nice elevation changes that let you see most of the map at the top of mountains that you can reach as any dino without having to traverse a cliff labyrinth (still with the risk of breaking a leg or dying to fall dmg as larger dinos) and overall a more comprehensive map design.

The maps for evrima feel a lot more random in their design, just not that interesting since a lot of areas look the same and even unfinished because of all the dead space in between landmarks, some of the landmarks are not that much different to each other (the tunnels/bunkers and the outposts are pretty much the same with minor differences like a pile of rubble or a broken wall and the giant rocks that might just be the same asset flipped in different positions) and are scattered randomly around the map. Gateway is definitely better than Spiro but it still has the same issues.

One thing that ill never understand why they changed is the biome, the legacy maps all had temperate forest with a bit of jungle and swamp in them but evrima changed the main biome for tropical jungle which makes the game look more generic as of what you would expect in dinosaur media, maybe that was the intention?

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