It's dusk and the bugs are chirping around me. I wander in the middle of a large virtual swamp, listening to the sound of bass in the distance. There is nothing else nearby – a few trees, a couple of other players. It's mostly just me and the sound coming from a large wooden structure hung with lights further out in the swamp.
When I finally arrive, the official clubhouse of the Bored Ape Yacht Club looms above me. I head towards the door to go inside. Only I found that I couldn't gain access; although the lights are on in the house, the doors don't actually open. There is nothing to do.
These were my first steps into a virtual world dedicated to the infamous cartoon monkeys that have become the symbol of all things NFT. Even though the NFT hype has died down, Yuga Labs, the company behind BAYC and several other NFT collections, is about to make the next big digital push with another early 2020s buzzword: a metaverse called Otherside.
Otherside has been a long time coming, with the company announcing its intention to build Otherside after raising $450 million in funding. in 2022One of BAYC's co-founders said at the time that the company hoped to build an “interoperable,” “gamified” and “decentralized” virtual world. Since then, Yuga Labs has remained largely silent about the project and finally launched an alpha version earlier this year. Today at the company's ApeFest event in Las Vegas, Yuga Labs announced that Otherside will officially launch on November 12th.
“In fact, this is one of the most ambitious projects ever undertaken in space.”
“Essentially, this is one of the most ambitious projects ever undertaken in space, and it’s finally starting to take shape,” says Yuga Labs Chief Product Officer Michael Figge. Edge.
In short, the idea is that Otherside is something like Roblox or Fortnitebut with cryptocurrency: you can use NFTs as avatars to explore virtual worlds created by Yuga Labs and other players. You can log in using a crypto wallet, but you don't need an NFT to participate or just communicate; you can simply join from a browser using more traditional methods such as email.
“We think there should be a very low barrier to entry for someone to try Otherside, because once they try it, it's a really great way to experience what it's like to own digital assets,” Figge says.
There are tons of cryptocurrencies everywhere you look. NFT Avatars, NFT Lands, Blockchain Based Currency. Yuga hopes it can build a creator ecosystem around all of this, giving builders a better deal than competing metaverses since these digital assets exist outside of its world and can be moved elsewhere in the future. You can also ignore all of this and just run around Otherside without going too deep into the crypt of it all if you want.
In addition to the area I explored, “The Swamp”, there will be a large virtual hub world called “The Nexus”. Some community-created experiences will also be available. These include a shooter called Bathroom Blitz (“the action is so explosive that you'll be squeezing your cheeks the entire time,” according to the description on the Otherside website) and a zombie game called Another flash. In worlds, you can also create “bubbles”, which are essentially an otherworldly version of a social audio room, like a club room or an X space.
“We actually think there's really a lot of potential for people who want to have their own experience at Otherside,” says Figge. “Pursuing user experience leaders like Roblox and Mining craft“This is a huge opportunity for us because I think a lot of people may be frustrated with the current way we support creators and the economic model behind it.”
Yuga Labs and Amazon collaborate on 'Boximus' avatar
Otherside's in-game avatars are 3D images of NFTs owned by players. “Any NFT collection can submit their collection of avatars for viewing and use on Otherside,” says Figge. Avatars will also be created using a new system Yuga Labs calls Voyager. There will initially be two avatar partnerships. One is a 300-piece collection from digital artist Daniel Arsham. The other is a shared “tokenized asset” in partnership with Amazon called Boximus, which Figge describes as “essentially consisting of a collection of Amazon boxes.” Figge says the Amazon avatar will be available directly on Amazon's website.
These avatars will cost money. “Think of these travelers as skins from the traditional game world,” says Figge. “We are not disclosing pricing details yet, but we can say that they should be reasonable and affordable.” And because these are blockchain-based assets, according to Figge, you'll be able to resell the ones you own, which is something you can't do in other games like the metaverse.
Before writing this article, I had to run around the Swamp. The world felt like a giant 3D social chat room—there was no play other than exploring and interacting with other visitors via voice or text. And while I don't want to judge the pre-launch virtual world too harshly before its public launch, it reminded me more of the empty experiences I had wandering around Meta's Horizon Worlds or Metaverse fashion show than something immediately fun and exciting, for example Fortnite.
There simply wasn't much to see or do in the Swamp other than wander around the clubhouse (which I couldn't go inside) or explore the swamp to see things like the outhouse (closed) and the platform by the train tracks (with an “out of service” sign). To my surprise, as I was leaving the platform, a train passed by, but my character was running too slowly to catch it. I found a portal that sent me towards the moving train, but I didn't land on it and splashed back into the water.
Even if we assume that these sorts of nitpicky problems are solved and The Swamp, Nexus or Otherside games are filled with players, 3D environments designed primarily for communication are usually very niche or quite boring. Hits like VRChat are the exception, not the rule. And part of what does things like Fortnite And Roblox is so popular that they have games you can play while hanging out with friends. At launch and with such a focus on cryptocurrency, I'm not sure Otherside will have the same edge.
Perhaps Otherside will evolve into something more interesting; FortniteRoblox and Mining craft they all gradually turned into huge hits. But I'm skeptical of what I see now, and you probably won't see the other side of me.
