Here is my personal list. This is just my own opinion, but I feel some may agree with it.
Interchange – Used to be my favorite map in previous wipes. Now? Loot is horrible, really only good early wipe for food and hideout maintenance. I miss having the fights for the tech stores and other locations. The best thing about the PVP here was the ease of callouts. You could just call out store names and know exactly where everyone is. Med ultra used to be the most fun to fight for; I don't know why it need to be nerfed to oblivion considering that you have to have power on, have the key, and be in a highly contested area. I know the Killa spawn rework was necessary, but I have been to interchange ~50 times this wipe and have not seen him. Make Interchange Great Again
Customs – I mostly hate everything about this map. The spawns are abysmal; you either spawn far as hell from everyone or within 50 m. Shooter born in heaven on this map used to be bad and now with the additional 25 m its hell. There's now only 3 good spots for shooter born and that's if and only if you get a decent spawn to be in the window where people are passing through. Also, the amount of bush wookies there are incredible. Timmy's just hiding in the shrubbery waiting for their chance to strike can be just as lethal as the infamous Altyn giga chad. The nice thing about customs is that the flow is pretty linear and the tasks are pretty easy to complete here because there's only so many places you know where there will be PMCs. Scavs are also abundant making it easy to farm them for tasks.
Reserve – Probably a hot take, but Reserve just bores me. There is really good loot everywhere on the map, good PVP spots, sniping is fun, and scaving is great. I just feel most of the time, I am dying in the first few minutes because the spawns are quite silly, or not seeing a single PMC the entire raid. Which isn't the worst thing to not see any PMCs, but it is also what makes it so boring for me. Also, the amount of times I've died to a horde of player scavs is embarrassing. I really only go to reserve for tasks or when I need an item that I know I can find there. Bonus points for possible raider kills.
Lighthouse – The loot is really what makes this map so good. I would like to see how my opinion changes when it finally gets its nerf. I really love the idea of the rogue area and the risk you take going in there. Sniping rogues is also terribly relaxing and fun when you're just looking to level up your sniper skill. Lighthouse shares the same problem as reserve where the chances of you of running into a scav mob are quite high: . Trying to get the physical lighthouse with only one choke point is pretty annoying with all the mountain goats trying to snipe you. It's also still in pretty bad shape as far as optimization goes. I still experience stutters and FPS drops despite having a pretty beefy set-up.
Woods – I have grown to really enjoy woods over the years. When I first started playing 3 years ago, I would avoid the map like the plague. There was no reason to be here other than shooter born in heaven and farming Shturman. The expansion and loot additions have made it much more enjoyable. Woods is still annoying for PVP in a squad: "I see him by the tree" "He's behind the rock." The loot here is also really underrated. The village, scav base, and medical area have enough stuff to pack your bags and make you want to extract. Also the best map for test drive IMO.
Shoreline – The map has a ton of good loot and you don't even need to go to the resort. It also has a TON of hidden stashes. Whenever I find myself broke (under 500k roubles), I just stash run there and come out plenty rich. The resort is fun for PVP as well, but I do find myself running into SKS rats just hiding in the halls and behind doors all the time. Always gives me a good jump scare and a good laugh. I feel as if there is a lot less scavs than in previous wipes which makes daily's and scav killing tasks kind of annoying. My best recommendation for shoreline, because it is such a large map, play the spawn and not the task. If I want to go to resort, but I spawn at the tunnels, I will just loot up the village and swamp and extract at path to lighthouse.
Factory – Nothing beats running to factory with a shotgun and clearing the map of timmy's and chads alike. The PVP is really fun and almost a guarantee that it will happen within seconds of spawning. Tagilla is also the easiest boss to kill in my opinion and the best part about him is that you don't have to look for him! Just wait till he starts charging you with his hammer and blast him with magnum buckshot to the legs. The loot on factory is also pretty balanced for the size of the map. You can get keys, flash drives, treasures, tech, meds, etc. Farming scavs here for there backpack and pocket loot is great too. Early wipe, it is very easy to go here and just farm players and scavs for easy XP. Also, the fact that you really only need one key here to extract anywhere makes it that much better. Night factory with a flashlight is all you need instead of NVGs. Running into cultists at night time here is rare, but it is terrifying when it happens. I would like to see a little more expansion here in the future.
1.Labs – I know I know, riddled with scumbags (but not so much anymore thanks to keycard nerf). When you do get a raid with no sussy bois though? Fucking awesome. Loot is always incredible, the PVP flows well, and enough raiders to make you shit your pants and keep you on your toes. The colored keycards are hard to find, but you really do not need them to get the items that are worth going to the map in the first place. I consistently get 120+ frames here and it makes that much better of an experience. There's only 2 types of players in Labs too: The Ultra Mega Super Chad, who have meta everything and you will only kill with luck OR the basement dwelling, shadow stalking, slow walking crustaceans who will not make an appearance until 15 – 20 minutes into the raid. Never assume that all PMCs are dead/extracted. I have been killed in a elevator while extracting at 82 Kg with 2 minutes left in the raid by a basement crab using a GL40. I used to stay far away from this map, but it is one of the easiest maps to learn and it is not that big. Worth the risk, but can be an easy way for you to blow through all your money.
What is your map rank order and hot takes?
