FANTASY MAP TIER LIST

hello my beautiful wonderful children I don't know why that became my intro but it is now and we're sticking with it today we are going to be going through and ranking different fantasy tier map lists I didn't phrase that ripe you know what I mean and I'm very excited to get this one I've been asked to do it quite a bit and it should be a lot of fun I didn't work on the lighting before I started recording so I'm gonna be cloaked in shadow a little bit for this and y'all just have to deal with that but you know how this works I really don't need to go over it again I'm gonna put the best maps and Esty or the worst indie and we're just gonna fill it in between it's not it's not complicated I feel the need to go over at each time but I really shouldn't well let's go ahead and kick this off I also didn't label these maps here so I hope I remember what each one is and call it by the correct name that'd be embarrassing if I didn't let's go on through first up we have the map from inheritance cycle it's a pretty good looking map it's standard it's a West Coast which there's so many West Coast fantasy maps it has you know water mountains forests nothing really jumps out to me about this one it looks like a lot of others but it's not bad it's just not highly original I'm inheritance cycle I'm feeling a solid let's just say it's in the sea it's not bad but there's nothing about it that's gonna jump out to me and it doesn't really tell me anything about the story or set a tone really anything that a fantasy map should do it certainly isn't isn't jumping off the page to me I do want to point out that you should be ignoring the artistic interpretation of the map here I'm basically just going off the physical look ignoring the artists flare because what I want to do here is see how much the map has originality to it and how much the actual structure of the land can help tell the story immerse you and all that etc etc I don't think the talent of the artist should really be taken into account here but moving on from inheritance which is a fine map but it's just a fine map we're gonna go ahead and go for the Tower of Babel this one was sent to me by Steven Keller I hope by saying your name right I've said your name several times new channel I hope it's right it's this I love because it has the city around it the different layers this tells a story in itself your imagination immediately begins to wonder and I enjoy it quite a bit we are doing country and city maps which is a little weird to be doing them side-by-side but I can't really justify doing that into difference everybody owes but this one I'm gonna go easy beat here definitely fits in right there enjoy it substantially and this you know it pulls from history as its own flair to it tower battle good I enjoy that one next up we have the king Killer map it's not just a West Coast map Thank You king killer I appreciate that well it is kind of a West Coast but it's not like just you know what I mean the Bulge the typical though it is definitely a west coast can we just get an East Coast fantasy map or even like a south or north for the love of God this is everyone trying to be middle-earth in some way alright so King killer is a good map it has a good amount of depth to it not a lot jumps out to me that's like geographically impossible which is a problem with some fantasy maps definitely has a European Flair to it which is nothing wrong with that but that's fine having a twist in Europe is very common and I'm not gonna I'm not gonna blame King killer for that at all and I will go ahead and say this is probably another b-tier for me don't don't absolutely love it but there's nothing wrong with it you know Patrick Rothfuss is a nice little fantasy map there that is perfectly acceptable to enjoy it's just uh it's not doing a whole lot that I haven't seen before really in a fantasy map is this one yeah okay so this one is from King's wild a book I have not read yes I am ranking fantasy maps from stories I've not read and you know what I can say here there's not a western coast in sight and I appreciate that I appreciate that a weird amount as someone who's like weirdly obsessed with fantasy maps it's just nice to know that we're not going to be doing this forever but this one's nice I like the the middlee the middle-earth influences are there for sure and the artistic style here but I'm not gonna try to take that into account we have a whole lot of forest land which sets this apart from a lot of other fantasy maps we see where you know you'll see just not that much intense detail put to some huge epic forest which I'm now is amazing really make me wonder is that like integral the story as it's a part of it maybe good mountain ranges some death that geographical that seems to not be how things should be especially up in this area but I'm not hating it overall I like it it looks good it has a weird structure to it that I'm oddly satisfied by so I'm gonna go ahead and say that this one yeah um you know what I'm feeling nice let's go beat here as well that's that's good I enjoyed that now we have the Lightbringer map this one if you've read Lightbringer it's highly Mediterranean influenced and print week seems to be trying to it's like a stripped-down minimal Mediterranean look to it but it's definitely there you have your capital in an island which I really enjoy that's different almost the time the capital cities just on a coast or it's you know it's not necessarily an island self-contained itself so that I do like different geographical landscapes come through clearly with the colors nicely done overall I like I don't know I'm having a hard time ignoring like the artistic interpretation of the geography that's really hard to do I don't necessarily like the art style and this one to be perfectly honest I'd like to have the more defined mountains and trees but moving up ignoring that I do like the the structure of this quite a bit and if you've read Lightbringer the travel is a big deal in this because you know if you're over here and you got to get down there that sucks and character struggle with that there's ways I'm going around that invented things and wrong those lines it's really great so for me Lightbringer ignoring the artistic style and just going off geography of this I'm actually feeling a tear because it's not a West Coast yeah yeah not a West Coast and it's got different geography to it and it's pretty original it's not just another middle-earth retelling like the inherited cycle seems to be here next up we have earth sea which I'm excited to see here and this is the first one that's going with an island hopping kind of vibe and I love island hopping vibes if you want to make me happy you you have an island hop setting and I'm definitely gonna go ahead put her at sea an a tear because having an island top setting like that just makes me feel like whimsical and wondered like oh there's so many different cultures and lands that are gonna be trapped in these different dislocated places how's the travel I'm gonna go especially with a series that has so much mythical creatures and aspects to it perfect more Island Maps I like island maps I'm biased for islands I'm bought by Big Island next up we have a lucid L map for those of you unaware this is from Mistborn and it's a it's a good city map I really like the big sweeping bridges here the main cosway's dividing into smaller streets districts clearly defined this looks like a fairly realistic city and if you look at a map of ancient Rome you see things like this popping up reven just medieval cities like medieval London especially with Harbor the harbour was clearly defined which is great a nice capital in the middle everything here looks pretty well done and that's the way Brandon's gonna do it especially with all aspects of his fantasy series she doesn't it doesn't cheap out so in terms of a city map this is definitely the best city map on the list I believe not there's many and I'm gonna go ahead and say this is st right here I really like booth Adele's map solid now we have the world of malazan I did have to really dig to find like a world of malazan map that actually has like any artistic application to it a lot of them are just bone-dry so this one has a good amount of artistic flair to it beautiful islands here well mostly zombies are continents I think you would define them bees are so large but there's smaller islands spattered in as well this to me is the first map I've come across here that feels like a full world and that just makes sense with malazan but a lot of fantasy series have this trend where there's the discovered known world and then the unknown lands and who knows how much the unknown lands makeup it's not really defined I think a lot of fantasy authors do that because they just you know that's accurate for the time back in the evil times we didn't know the whole world so that same is continued forward malazan seems to not have that here and it makes sense because we jump around so much in this series from nation to nation culture to culture but malazan i love this i think it's not a whole lot of geographical possibilities really none showing up here that pop out to me immediately granted I am watching on a dim screen but solid all the way through solid I'm stuck between a and s and I'm gonna think I'm gonna go ahead and jump in a nest here because I mainly out of respect for having a whole world and it'd be justified than a taxi for story well done fan of that Roche are another fruitful world one which again is rare for fantasy maps this one really tells a story within just how the map looks again you know if you've read Stormlight archive i haven't confirmed this by looking anywhere but i have a theory that Roche r was perfectly meant to look like a storm cloud because of the red Stormlight archive duh and it's divided nicely there's a few geographical kind of that doesn't make complete sense in my mind things here but with what we know about what's happening in the atmosphere there and the extreme weather that's very alien to earth i can just kind of forgive it although I don't find Roche R to actually be an ST R without any qualms because well it is beautiful and I can excuse a lot of things I I just don't think it's quite up to par with a lot of others with that being said that was definitely Nate here no way I'm gonna not put that Nate here next up we have mid world from Dark Tower if you want okay this is like a prime example DUP telling a story in the map is important to me telling me things about your world giving me an impression of some kind and mid world is perfectly designed to just look like it's barrowing towards it target because that's what it is if you've if you've read Dark Tower there's a target that is trying to be reached and the journey through mid world to get to that target without getting into spoilers is just this incredible quest that spans so many books so I love the look of this that being said this is one of the is actually several master this is one of those maps so I'm not sure where it came from I don't know if it's specifically from within the text because I have weird copies of some of these books and none of them have maps unfortunately actually I haven't checked the one that was given to me by I need to check that one but this is a great map I really like the way it looks overall it's just it's beautiful no Jia Jia graphical complete impossibilities here except for how things are kind of odd but I can excuse again because of just you know it helps build the structure of the story in the world and that's fine so for me mid world is going to be an eighth year definitely like that it's not a West Coast thank God it's kind of just a middle Peninsula or maybe yet Peninsula what would you call that I don't know well we don't see the bottom or top so I don't know what's going on there exactly but I enjoy it it's great moving on we have the world from Mistborn a West Coast so points off for personality there I guess I want to know that the conscious or subconscious influence if you are a fantasy author out there did you consciously think like West Coast because that's fantasy it's what we got to do but this fall's did a lot more offense typical fantasy stuff here is a nice map there's other you know artistic takes on it I just really like this one it's got you know mountain ranges that kind of makes sense although mountains on the coast like that isn't the most common thing there's a few just oddities but it's simple like I can't discredit this one anyway and I like how much of the story comes through here because it almost feels like you're walled in by mountains and the people are trapped here that makes sense as well I think it's giving a very intentional vibe with that although I've been known to read way too much into my lips before but I'm not feeling anything exceptional about it so I'm going to go ahead and just drop it in to be here and that's okay now we have what I was asked to do that I was actually I would never have done in a million years and this is why I'm glad I did the Twitter poll someone asked me to do the map from Wizard of Oz and that is that's great thank you for asking me to do that this one complete fantasy nonsense and it's beautiful for it it's just a wild chaotic thing I don't know if this is Canon or official I just know I like it it's just absurd and that's great it doesn't need to be anything besides that and that's that's knowing the text of the story we're going to go into another example of that later on that being said in terms of like actual what you can redo into it map or anything like that and then that's basically what I'm like trying to actually do here it's got almost nothing someone's gonna drop that and see and feel a little bit bad about it sorry for Wizard of Oz diehards out there this is what I've got to do now we have Skyrim this again I would not have done but someone suggested it I was like why not we're doing fantasy maps it's absolutely a fantasy map the Skyrim map is great one North Coast appreciates you dog it's definitely part of a larger world that we are aware of if you play more of the Oblivion games and I enjoy this one nothing here jumps out of me as completely impossible it's well structured it just makes sense it's rather simple but it doesn't need to be anything fancy and the only thing that really kind of hampers it is the proximity of certain cities but that's again just a video game mechanic so I can't fault it for that oh yeah sighs doesn't entirely make sense the fact that you can jog from one city to the next and it's span of a couple hours the economy there would be wild but uh yeah I'm not gonna fault it for that that's fine and I'll throw it and be as well you know it's hard to really mess up fantasy map the player gave me in detail but wait we might get there now we won't next up is Wheel of Time again West Coast map there's some geographical oddities here but with mild mild spoiler warning for the Wheel of Time the breaking of the world happening it kind of just makes sense there has been an outside influence on this world to shape its geography so having some oddities is completely acceptable and fine including just a random mountain in the middle of nothing but it was made for a reason so that's allowed we have basically Alaska you can't argue with me that this is basically Alaska it really is but there's a few things that don't make complete sense if you look at it with a hundred percent critical eye but it's fine it's not the most original it's really the utilization within the story of the nations and things that make will of times story work so well there's not much from the map itself you can pull from the story unless you really know the lore first but I'm I think it's a perfectly good fantasy map I don't think it's the best ever though I know there's some build time fans are gonna hate me for that but I'll drop it in a because I do think it does so it does suffer from originality but it does all those typical fantasy tropes just fine so we biani Lister for me for there now we have another city map coming through from gentlemen bastards and that's the cou more Scott Lynch made a very cool fantasy map here with the water running through the city it's this what it's this you know canal filled city this grimy nasty City this story takes place in and I love it again in terms of artistic take not much going on here at all but it's still a beautiful concept I like the idea it's totally original in my mind to have the main story that main focus be in this city that has waterways throughout it something we see in the real world but in terms of fantasy genre I haven't seen much before and it take it has it and again it adds to the story this is something that actually affects the story directly so I like that I like everything about the coup more I wish we had a beautiful artist take we don't have that yet but I'm gonna go ahead and say this for me in terms of concept is gonna be an STR mainly because of originality dig that and I like how much it plays into the story as well because I'm I had a beautiful artistic rendition of that where I saw clearly it's a city with waterways weaving in between it I'd be so down like right away off that alone I'd want to see what's going on now we have Westeros Westeros is one of those clear like the author likes your up maps out there but he does a really good job with it there's some oddities as well geographically I'm gonna keep saying that but it's just true but overall I like it quite a bit you have your clear this is England station and then there's the twisted rest of the world it does make me want to see more of the world it's not a full world map there's some stuff that doesn't make complete sense but I'm fine with it I can just you know it's a fantasy world let's get over it there's magic here and I can't really fault it for anything it's not the most original it's not the most crazy but especially with the north and if you look closely there's a lot of nice little Easter eggs in there I'm very confident to go ahead and put Westeros in the 8th year that's a good map next up we have Grand Daddy middle-earth no question the most influential map created for fiction middle-earth has just set the standard and changed everything that's why half these maps here are clear homage Azure ripoffs how every one of you them to middle-earth without a doubt and it's arguably never been topped I mean it's so beautifully done there's so much detail in nuance it's just awesome I and everything there within the lore is explained or makes sense to some degree so you're an if you don't like middle-earth I'm just gonna put that out there at least from a geographical standpoint and appreciation for what it's inspired and the next up we this is a very positive list today next up we have another s tier because it's Discworld and I've gotten a bit further in Discworld I forget how many books I've read now I have them on audiobook and I just keep pushing through one after the other and I love them now and this map you know how I feel about absurdism absurdum is absurdism is a beautiful thing and having your world beyond a turtle's back it's just yes everything about this is a gigantic win and a yes it's bold its brash its creative this again you're a jerk if you don't like this world's math but this is my random ramblings and rankings of some fantasy maps here this wasn't the most like diverse set of topics I could talk about for a fantasy map list cuz it's kind of just like what's the geography like is it original is it another goddamn West Coast but you know I just have to go off my gut reaction to them and I've applied by this quite a bit let me know what your favorite fantasy maps are in the comments down below like and subscribe if you have not already hit the patreon if you'll support what I do here and have a good one y'all peace and of course I'd like to record a special shout out to my latest high tier patreon Fabio Fontana I love your name for so many reasons man and I hope you're having a great day I'm having a good one [Music]

Channel: Daniel Greene

Views: 190,919

Keywords: fantasy maps, maps, tier list, fantasy tier list, fantasy map tier list, daniel greene, middle earth, stormlight archive, roshar, game of thrones map, middle earth map

Id: fnFP2A4GmME

Length: 19min 57sec (1197 seconds)

Published: Fri Oct 04 2019