When playing an MMO, an underappreciated component of the game is in map design. The individual zones become the area where players will spend most of their time. These zones are home to quests, gathering materials, monster hunts, and a whole collection of other things. Backtracking is also common, so these zones have to be future-proofed with good designs.
In this respect, Final Fantasy XIV outshines other MMOs. While most zones aren't amazing and some of the maps are confusing, they work well enough. Of course, that doesn't mean some zones stand out. Some zones are striking and memorable, leaving a lasting impact on the player. Others will just make the player never want to return. In either scenario, they're absolutely worth talking about and remembering.
10 Players Love: The Churning Mists
High up in the clouds of Dravania rests the ancestral homeland of both regal dragons and adorable Moogles: The Churning Mists. This aetherically charged land of floating rocks covers a variety of emotions. The whimsical section of Moghome, land of the Moogles, contrasts with the foggy islands and ancient buildings.
In the narrative, there's a lot of mystery within The Churning Mists. The main story doesn't even have the player explore most of what the zone has to offer. Still, it has incredible sights and is the best zone in all of Heavensward.
9 Players Hate: The Ruby Sea
Later expansions in FFXIV offer higher quality zones across the board. However, that doesn't mean there isn't the occasional stinker. Stormblood's worst zone is The Ruby Sea. While it's quite a serene area in terms of music and the ocean vibes, it suffers from just being too large.
The underwater parts of the map, including Tamamizu, are gorgeous but slow to go through. The regions above the sea are spread too far apart, making quickly traveling between island for Kojin quests a slog. Navigating a zone shouldn't just be hitting the autorun key and alt-tabbing. At the very least, the individual island locations are interesting, so that nearly makes up for its other problems.
8 Players Love: Amh Araeng
Shadowbringers, the third expansion, has winners across the board in terms of great zones. Even the worst zone to navigate, The Tempest, makes up for its jank with just how amazing Amaurot looks. So, of course the best zones are going to mostly be from Shadowbringers.
Amh Araeng is one of the first areas in Norvrandt the player travels to after Lakeland, and it helps set the tone for the rest of the expansion. The desert wasteland is where the Flood of Light that nearly ruined Norvrandt was halted, a wave of crystallized light hanging over the horizon. It's gorgeous and moody, highlighted by the incredible lo-fi beat that plays while exploring and questing.
7 Players Hate: Coerthas Western Highlands
In a similar vein, the Coerthas Western Highlands helps define the mood of Heavensward. The story itself is more grim, with the party as fugitives thrown into an ancient war. And, appropriately, one of the first areas players are greeted with is a snow-covered wasteland. It's cold, dark, and foreboding.
However, aside from the atmosphere, this map is absolutely the pits to navigate. With one single aetheryte crystal at the southern end, it's quite the hike to get anywhere. Even with flying, it just takes an eternity. Plus, although a snowy wasteland is good for the drama, it's not very exciting to look at for very long. This isn't an area anyone is going to want to quest in beyond what's required.
6 Players Love: The Azim Steppe
Stormblood offers a variety of locations with an Eastern flair in design. The previously mentioned Ruby Sea may not impress, but other zones like Yanxia or The Fringes offer better experiences. The Azim Steppe is better than both of those in nearly every aspect, including offering a fantastic mount.
The music is a wonderful tune that fits the wide open fields, home to the nomadic Au Ra tribes that often engage in conflict for control of the region. The player is even roped into one of these conflicts in an incredible main story quest. The expansive fields of green provide a much more serene viewing and questing experience than other large open zones in the game. It's Stormblood's best zone by a significant margin.
5 Players Hate: Eastern Thanalan
A Realm Reborn deserves a tremendous amount of credit for revitalizing a game that most people considered to be dead. However, that doesn't mean that it's zones have not aged terribly. Its zones suffer from similar problems to early World of Warcraft zones, particularly due to flight not being in the base game. That means that a lot of irritating zones just so happen to be classic ones.
Eastern Thanalan has a number of annoyances. Camp Drybone alone deserves a spot on this list for how confusing its layout is, and the deserts of Thanalan aren't nearly as dynamic as other later desert-like areas. The poorly designed map especially just creates a lot of confusion in navigation, and being lost in Eastern Thanalan is not a place anyone wants to be.
4 Players Love: The Rak'tika Greatwood
Not a lot of zones in FFXIV have music that's instantly recognizable from the first few seconds. A lot of players probably don't remember differences in zone music, especially those who might have not played in some time. But from the moment anyone enters The Rak'tika Greatwood, its music becomes deeply ingrained in the brain. It's so recognizable it became a meme on the expansion's release.
"La hee's" aside, the zone itself is gorgeous and home to fantastic quests and dungeons. The greenery in the zone is unmatched by anything else in the game, and it just creates scale incredibly well. Sure, it's a zone carried a lot by its music, but it's also just fantastic outside of that as well.
3 Players Hate: Upper La Noscea
Upper La Noscea, just judging by the map, isn't too large. As flying is now enabled in A Realm Reborn zones, it isn't even that hard to navigate anymore. However, the sheer annoyance of this map makes it worth including.
The zone is split into two regions, each being accessed from entirely different zones. On their own, each side isn't so bad. However, without flying, traveling between the two requires a lot of extra loading screens and ferry rides. The western side of the map doesn't have an aetheryte crystal, meaning the only way to quickly get between the two sides is by ferry or by loading into a completely different zone. Either way, slow computers are going to hate Upper La Noscea and any of the quests tied to the zone.
2 Players Love: Il Mheg
Il Mheg isn't the most popular zone in Shadowbringers, but it's absolutely a memorable one. Home to the fae kingdom, the zone perfectly replicates both the whimsy and the melancholy associated with its people. It's colorful and dynamic to explore, with the landmark of Titania's Castle always looming in the distance, waiting for the player to reach it.
Compared to other zones that have beast tribe quests, this one doesn't even get tiring to do daily quests for. There are enough aetheryte crystals in the region to make teleporting between spots quick and easy. It's always a treat to explore the region, and is possibly the best zone in the whole game.
1 Players Hate: Western Thanalan
Western Thanalan, on its own, is not as bad as other ARR regions. In fact, the map itself is pretty straightforward in terms of its design. Despite that, it likely stands out in the mind of any ARR player as a region they hate to revisit.
There's one reason for this: there's a single aetheryte crystal at Horizon, which is centrally located. However, the most visited location in ARR is The Waking Sands at Vesper Bay. There is no aetheryte crystal at Vesper Bay. Every single time the player pray returns to The Waking Sands is a teleport to Horizon and a long walk to Vesper Bay. It's the most annoying zone in the entire game by far.