The Bored Ape Yacht Club is back – as a supernatural entity

It’s dusk, and insects are chirping all around me. I’m wading through the middle of a large virtual swamp towards a distant bass. There’s not much nearby — some trees, and a couple of other guys. Mostly just me and the sound coming from a large wooden structure hung with lights placed farther out in the swamp.

When I finally arrived, it rose above me: the official clubhouse of the Bored Ape Yacht Club. I prepare the door to head inside. However, I found that I could not reach; Even though the lights are on in the house, the doors don’t actually open. There is nothing to do.

This was my first step into the virtual world of the infamous cartoon monkeys that have become a symbol of all things NFT craze. Although the hype around NFTs has died down, Yuga Labs, the company behind BAYC and a few other NFT groups, is about to make a big new digital push with another early 2020 buzzword, a metaverse called Otherside.

Otherside has been a long time coming: The company announced its intention to build Otherside after raising $450 million in funding In 2022with BAYC’s co-founder saying at the time that the company hoped to build an “interoperable,” “playable,” and “decentralized” virtual world. Yuga Labs has been quiet about the project ever since, finally releasing 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 12.

“It’s basically one of the most ambitious projects ever attempted in this space, and it’s finally starting to take shape,” says Michael Feig, chief product officer at Yuga Labs. Edge.

The short version of the pitch is that Otherside is similar to Roblox or fortniteBut with cryptocurrencies: You can use NFTs as avatars to explore virtual worlds created by Yuga Labs and other players. You can log in with a crypto wallet, but you don’t need an NFT to participate or just spend time; You can only join from a browser using more traditional methods such as your email.

“We think there should be a very low barrier to entry for someone to try Otherside, because once you try it, it’s a really great way to get a sense of what it’s like to actually own digital assets,” says Vij.

There’s a bunch of coded stuff everywhere you look. NFT avatars, NFT plots, and blockchain-based currency. Yuga hopes it can build an ecosystem for creators around all of this, giving builders a more compelling deal than competitors because these digital assets exist outside of its world and can be moved elsewhere in the future. You can also mostly ignore all of this and wander the Otherside without diving too much into cryptocurrencies, if you wish.

In addition to the area you’ve explored, the Swamp, there will be a large virtual hub world called the Nexus. Some community-made experiences will also be available to play. These include a shooter game called Bathroom raids (“The action is so explosive, you’ll have your cheeks pinched the whole time,” according to the description on Otherside’s website) and a zombie game called Breakout the other side. In Realms, you can also create “bubbles,” which are basically another version of a social audio room, like a Clubhouse room or X Space.

“We actually think there’s really great potential for people who want to do their own experiments on the other side,” says Figi. “Going after established companies in the user-generated experience space, like Roblox and Minecraftis a huge opportunity for us, because I think a lot of people might be disillusioned with this current way of supporting creators and the economic model behind it.

Otherside’s in-game avatars are 3D representations of NFTs that players own. “Any NFT group can submit their own set of avatars for review and use on Otherside,” says Vij. There will also be avatars created using a new system Yuga Labs calls Voyager. There will initially be two avatar partnerships. One of them is a 300-piece collection by digital artist Daniel Arsham. There is also a co-branded “token asset” in partnership with Amazon called Boximus which Vig describes as “essentially made up of a bunch of Amazon boxes.” Figi says the Amazon avatar will be available directly on Amazon’s website.

These avatars will cost money. “Think of these travelers as a ‘skin’ of the traditional gaming world,” Feig says. “We are not revealing pricing details yet, but what we can say is that they are intended to be reasonable and affordable.” Because they are blockchain-based assets, you will be able to resell assets you own, according to Figge, which you can’t do in other metaverse-like games.

I had to wander through the swamp before I wrote this article. This world looked like a giant 3D social chat room, and there wasn’t any kind of game to play besides exploring the space and chatting with fellow visitors via voice or text. And while I don’t want to judge the pre-launch virtual world too harshly before it’s publicly released, it reminded me more of the empty experiences I’ve had while wandering through Meta’s Horizon Worlds or Metaverse fashion show Of something instantly fun and engaging fortnite.

In The Swamp, there wasn’t much to see or do besides wander outside the club (which I couldn’t get into) or explore the swamp to see things like an outhouse (closed) and a platform next to the train track (with a sign saying “OUT OF ORDER”). To my surprise, as I was walking away from the platform, a train started to pass by me, but my character ran too slowly to catch it. I found a portal that sent me flying towards the moving train, but I missed landing on it and fell back into the water.

Even assuming that these kinds of difficult issues are fixed and that The Swamp, Nexus, or Otherside experiences are full of players, 3D environments intended primarily for social networking are usually too niche or too boring. Visits like VRChat are the exception, not the rule. And part of what makes things like fortnite And Roblox is so popular that they have games that you can play while spending time with your friends. At launch, with this focus on cryptocurrencies, I’m not sure Otherside will have the same appeal.

Maybe the other side will develop into something more interesting; fortniteRoblox, and Minecraft They all grew on their way to becoming huge hits. But I’m skeptical about what I see now, and you probably won’t see me on the other side.