Otherside Metaverse Opens With a Bang

These days, the term ‘broke the internet’ is quite popular and usually refers to an incident that gained widespread attention online. Think the COVID-19 outbreak, the 2020 U.S elections, or a Beyonce album release. It is one of those moments that even those outside of the subculture it affects hears about. 

With that in mind, it could be said that the Otherside NFT mint from a few months ago broke the crypto internet. The rush to buy the NFTs, called Otherdeeds, was so intense that people paid tens of thousands of dollars in minting fees alone. 

Now, Otherside, the metaverse that the NFTs granted access to, has been launched to similar fanfare. 

Welcome to the Otherside

Officially unveiled on July 16, 2022, Otherside is the official metaverse of Yuga Labs, the company behind the Bored Ape Yacht Club NFT Collection. The first trip into the Otherside metaverse was open to its NFT holders only and saw them being guided into the landscape by a digital ape.

In total, 4,500 people participated in the demo and were referred to as voyagers. Once inside the metaverse, they were allowed to test out the capabilities of their avatars and interact with the metaverse itself. 

Yuga Labs has made it clear that several demo trips will be taken in these initial stages and these are meant to get feedback from its community. 

“Today’s tech demo has ended. Thank you to all the Voyagers who participated: we’ll tweet here when your credit is ready later today. If you’re already hungry for more Otherside, we’ve released a litepaper: https://otherside.xyz/litepaper. See [thread] for more,” the official Otherside Twitter account said following the demo, noting that the litepaper will be changed over time as more feedback is collated from its users. 

In the paper itself, it is stated that Otherside will unravel in three phases, though information was posted only about the first phase. According to the paper, this first phase will mark the beginning of Otherside’s development and this will be done with input from the voyagers. 

At the centre of phase one is the ‘Voyager’s Journey’ – an 11-part storyline surrounding a mysterious Obelisk that has appeared in the Otherside universe. Users are encouraged to “team up with other Voyagers, develop your own experiences on your slice of the Otherside, and discover and shape what can be harvested, crafted, traded, bought, and sold.”

Otherside Moving Forward 

Despite the commotion regarding the initial Otherdeed sale, the Otherside demo was well-received by users, many of whom praised the graphics and immersive nature of the platform. 

Now, it is left to see how the metaverse takes shape following user and developer feedback. If the future iterations of Otherside are as popular as the first one, it could go on to become one of the biggest metaverses on the planet. After all, it already has the backing of one of the biggest companies in the NFT space, as well as an enthusiastic fanbase.