On Saturday, Greg Solano, co-founder of Yuga Labs, announced that the company had acquired the Unreal Engine-based creation platform behind Otherside from tech firm Improbable. Alongside the platform, many of the developers and engineers who worked on the product will join Yuga Labs at the start of the new year. Solano, also known as Garga, shared the news on X, explaining that Yuga has secured a perpetual license for Improbable's high concurrency tech as part of the deal.

This move brings the Otherside creator tools and the dev team under Yuga's full control. Solano described it as a step toward building "the best creator platform in crypto," where anyone can create multiplayer experiences with real economies and full digital ownership. With the platform now fully in-house, Yuga says it will be able to move faster, iterate more freely, and invest in the future of Otherside and its creators.

Yuga Labs Refocuses on Otherside and BAYC

Yuga Labs rose to fame as the studio behind the Bored Ape Yacht Club (BAYC) NFT collection. Launched in 2021, BAYC became one of the most recognized projects in web3, pushing Yuga into the spotlight. In the years that followed, Yuga acquired other well-known NFT collections like CryptoPunks and Meebits, and it launched Otherside, a blockchain metaverse tied to BAYC's characters and lore.

But in 2025, Yuga began scaling back to focus more tightly on Otherside and BAYC. Earlier this year, the company sold off several NFT properties it had acquired in past years. This included letting go of CryptoPunks, Meebits, and Moonbirds. The reason was to shift resources back toward its main goals, building Otherside and growing the BAYC ecosystem.

The shift began showing results in mid-2025, with new updates and feature rollouts across Otherside. That push included content for players, builders, and developers. Then in late 2025, the company made 2 major moves: launching an NFT on Amazon Gaming and acquiring Improbable's tech stack.

The Otherside Amazon Launch and Nexus Update

Back in October, Yuga Labs teamed up with Amazon for a one-time NFT drop that marked the company's first major retail push. The avatar, named Boximus, launched on October 30 through Amazon Gaming and was made available in the Otherside brand store. The NFT was designed as part of the Voyager series, playable characters used inside the Otherside world. Yuga Labs confirmed that Boximus could be used in-game once the Nexus area of the world went live.

The launch was timed just ahead of the Koda Nexus release, a new hub inside Otherside's growing metaverse. Officially opened on November 12, the Nexus serves as a social core for the world, a space where players can meet, chat, and explore. The Nexus is part of a 3-layer structure planned for Otherside, with later layers focused on gameplay and UGC.

The second layer will add battle zones, quests, and game events made by both Yuga and 3rd-party developers. The third layer will unlock full building tools through the Otherside Development Kit, or ODK. The ODK includes chat-driven AI features that let users build environments with simple typed commands, like "add a tree" or "make the sky blue." Builders can use nearly 1,000 assets from 29 biomes to create their content. These tools launched in mid-2025 to help lower barriers for creators.

Pushing Multiplayer to the Limit

Otherside has also put major focus on large-scale multiplayer gameplay. In February, the project hosted a shooter demo called Project Dragon that broke a Guinness World Record. Over 2,100 players joined a single server at once, proving that the platform could handle high traffic in real time.

That test relied on Improbable's tech for high concurrency, the same technology Yuga has now licensed permanently as part of the recent deal. This tech helps support smooth gameplay with many active players, something Yuga sees as key to Otherside's future.

Yuga has continued testing new gameplay concepts. In July, it hosted a Bored Ape-themed shooter called Bathroom Blitz, where players obtained XP by taking part in 8v8 battles. In August, it launched Otherside Outbreak, a performance stress-test that also rewarded player progress. These events helped gather feedback and showed that the game could support large active communities at once.

Preparing for 2026 and Creator Tools Expansion

Yuga's long-term plan now focuses on expanding Otherside while giving users more control. The final rollout for 2025 includes 2 big milestones: a full update to the Voyager avatar system and more land utility for Otherdeeds, the game's land NFTs. Owners of Otherdeeds will get more ways to use their land, such as hosting events or crafting new items.

In 2026, Yuga plans to add a new gameplay feature called Resources. This will likely bring in land production, crafting, and a player-run economy using in-game tools. These features will run on ApeChain, a custom blockchain layer that powers transactions and assets inside Otherside. The world uses $APE as its main currency, with support for NFTs and Ethereum standards.

Yuga says its builder platform is designed for "real ownership and real economies." Builders keep full control of their creations and can earn revenue through royalties. The ODK also includes emote makers, graffiti tools, and other ways to personalize content. The recent platform acquisition now puts all of this tech directly under Yuga's control.

Development Team Joins Yuga in 2026

Along with the creation tools and platform license, Yuga confirmed that many developers and engineers who worked on Otherside under Improbable will officially join them in the new year. These team members have been part of the Otherside project for years and are expected to help drive future updates more quickly now that they're in-house.

The deal gives Yuga tighter control over product timelines and support. Solano noted that having the platform and its team internally will let the company "move much faster" and invest more directly in creators.