The Bored Ape Yacht Club Creates a New Metaverse Called The "Otherside"

The founders of the NFT project, Bored Ape Yacht Club, have officially launched what’s known as the Otherside, a gaming platform based in the metaverse.

They are building out this digital world through their startup, YugaLabs, and with their crazy levels of community involvement and a $4 Billion dollar valuation, I’m pretty bullish about this becoming the next big thing in NFTs, crypto, and the metaverse itself. With projects like Bored Ape Yacht Club, Mutant Ape Yacht Club, CryptoPunks, Cool Cats, and more involving themselves in this metaverse, it is on track to become the leader in metaverse gaming.

To become a part of this metaverse, players must be proud owners of Otherdeed NFTs, which are basically virtual plots of land that come with a set of resources, artifacts, and sometimes, very rarely, what’s known as a Koda. Now, let’s break all of that down.

These plots of land are built upon five different sediment types that all span out from the center of the Otherside map. It starts with the innermost ring, the Biogenic Swamp, reserved for OG Bored Ape holders. The next ring out is Chemical Goo, which was reserved for Mutant Ape holders. And the following rings, Rainbow Atmos, Cosmic Dream, and Infinite Expanse were listed to be minted by anyone else. These plots of land are said to be ever-evolving, changing based on what users choose to do in the game, which really adds to the mystery of what we’re getting ourselves into here. 

In the Otherside metaverse, resources are the key to survival and success, and each Otherdeed NFT has a certain combination of these resources. There are 4 main resources, which are Anima (used for research), Ore (metal), shard (stone), and root (wood). The full use of these resources has yet to be announced, but we do know that they will allow players to craft items within the Otherside that will likely be used to complete missions, challenges, storylines, and more. These items have distinct rarities, and in perfect line with an NFT metaverse, I assume that players will be able to sell these items on a marketplace. Each Otherdeed also has potential items such as artifacts and Kodas, which are highly sought-after rarities in the Otherside.

Kodas are intentionally mysterious beings that only the luckiest of holders will encounter. We don’t know much about these Kodas yet other than the fact that they have some sort of connection to the Otherside land. YugaLabs stated that anyone who encounters a Koda should take care, stating that “We don’t know why they brought us here, or what their affinity to this land is. If you are lucky enough to meet a Koda, tread cautiously.” So, I am SUPER excited to learn more about what these Kodas will mean for the game.

All of these components combined together determine the rarity of each plot of land, on a scale of 1-5, with 1 being the least rare, and 5 being the rarest. You can easily figure out the rarity of each Otherdeed by looking at the amount of dots at the top of its NFT. This rarity obviously has a significant impact on the value of each NFT, so lucky holders made a pretty penny off of resale if they chose to list their rare piece.

So, if you were early enough or rich enough to have purchased one of these plots of land, you have the chance to experience the Otherside. To kick things off, the Otherside metaverse had a live immersive launch that allowed holders of Otherdeed NFTs to experience the metaverse in a Fortnite style/guided experience. Players were taken on an hour-long virtual experience in which they learned about resources, Kodas, controls, abilities, and so much more. While there were complaints about how crowded the event was, there was generally positive feedback from attendees and viewers of the event. The $450 million dollar investment into YugaLabs and this project was used well, as players were immersed into an extremely well-designed 3d universe.

This beta launch was definitely a success and got a lot of people excited about what’s to come for the Otherside Metaverse. So, what’s next? Well, YugaLabs plans to have a wide public launch in the near future, as they begin to nail down their plans for monetization and widespread use. They want to compete with big gaming players such as Epic Games, Roblox, and Meta, by creating the most immersive gaming world with complex storylines, role-playing abilities, and so much more. 

Arguably, the most exciting part about the Otherside metaverse is the ability for players to use their very own NFT as a playable character. Currently, Bored Ape, Mutant Ape, Kennel Club, and Cryptopunk NFT holders will be able to use their NFTs as playable characters in-game, at launch.

Many more collaborations are expected and have been teased with the inclusion of projects like World of Women and Cool Cats in the Otherside trailer, and I predict that there will be dozens, if not 100s of NFT projects that will be accepted into the Otherside in the near future. 

I’m excited to watch this project grow and evolve, and I can’t wait to see what it will mean to the world of NFTs and play-to-earn gaming.