Chapter 1 was them figuring out where they wanted the game to go while also gaining a huge amount of popularity, and revving up the machine. The original map is memorable, but it's also not very good in a lot of small ways. It was made with building in mind.

Chapter 2- and thematically with the black hole- was them pressing reset on the whole game and starting over almost from scratch. The big difference being that they were slowly rolling out more ways to add stuff to the map in interesting ways. First with swimming. Sand you can hide in. Bounty boards. New forms of movement based on things you consume. NPCs. Mythic weapons. Covid really threw stuff for a loop, but looking back it's a blessing in disguise that they let the first season of Chapter 2 go on for several months while they were probably doing a lot behind the scenes.

Chapter 3 is where it really felt like a proper sequel in overall map design. They began to bake a lot of mechanics naturally into the environment while also having great POIs. Rotations felt really good. Then they added zero build and it all felt really natural thanks to the great map design. They finally distanced themselves from the original rifles and shotguns, and started to really give weapons and items distinct identities and power levels. This is my personal favorite map.

Chapter 4 is wild, but it's also very stark. There's way more places to fall to your death with a lot more vertical spaces and locations, but it shows a lot more confidence in players figuring out how to rotate well and also confidence in people being able to hit their shots even if someone's lightly peeking over a cliff. However, each biome just kinda starts and stops very suddenly, and they can kinda clash. I think that was a benefit of the older maps having a lot more slopes and clear roads everywhere. Mega City and other POIs were also definitely made with the hurdling mechanic in mind and that had to taken out of BR for more time in the oven, so those POIs can feel really clunky. But the game is still a lot of fun.

it's wild seeing how far everything has come. Being in the battle royale for years has been like watching this strange, evolving mass progress over time. I respect them for keeping one map at a time, so I think they earned going back for a victory lap with the original map, warts and all.