This brings me back. Some of my best memories were playing DayZ in 2012 and getting absolutely torn apart by bandits.

Don't think I've had a gaming experience like that since, including with the standalone version

Chernarus was such a better map than Altis or Stratis. It was large enough that you could run some serious games, but small enough that you could comfortably learn the entire terrain pretty well.

Some of the best gaming moments were duelling snipers on the hill north of Electrozavodsk in DayZ, sneaking from town to town between the two airfields, or on the Arma 2 Warfare mod running convoys through the woods to try to flank the other team.

The Arma 3 maps were definitely technically impressive, but bigger is not always better.