Yuga Labs invites players to tour Otherside metaverse in first test

Yuga Labs, the creator of the popular NFT project Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC), has invited 4,300 players to take the first trip to the much anticipated Otherside metaverse gaming platform. 

The trip was a tech demo held on July 16, with 4,300 “Voyagers” taking a tour to the “Biogenic Swamp” at the heart of the Otherside, an immersive, online platform navigated by users’ ape avatars. The Voyagers are owners of plots of digital land on the platform.

Their trip marked the opening of phase one of the Otherside metaverse. In an upcoming extension of phase one, Yuga Labs will invite Voyagers to participate in an “11-part storyline surrounding a mysterious Obelisk that has appeared in the Otherside universe.”

According to a litepaper released by Yuga Labs on July 17,  Voyagers can experience the platform’s building process and other tasks via the creation tool ‘Otherside Development Kit’ and give their feedback to Yuga Labs.

“We believe in the extraordinary power of community and have seen firsthand how it can be a significant force for good in this industry,” the litepaper stated. “We aim to incentivize, empower, and recognize the expression, creativity, and ingenuity of Otherside’s community of contributors.”

Gordon Goner, a co-founder of Yuga Labs, said in a Tweet that Otherside is competing with Web2 “giants,” but expressed optimism that “the future will bend toward the open, interoperable metaverse.”

Otherside is a blockchain-based metaverse developed by Yuga Labs and Animoca Brands, a Hong Kong blockchain company which owns The Sandbox and other metaverse and NFT projects.  Characters from BAYC and Yuga Labs’ NFT collection Mutant Ape Yacht Club (MAYC) can be used as 3D game characters on the platform.