The latest game released by Otherside, a NFT gaming firm backed by $450 million in funding from Bored Ape Yacht Club’s Yuga Labs, called Project Dragon, debuted over the weekend and was met with mixed reviews. The third-person shooter game set in the Otherside ‘metaverse’ features players competing to capture objectives across an 8-bit city map. While some users with NFT profile pictures praised the game, others criticized it for being chaotic, buggy, unresponsive, and having terrible aim lag. One player even quit after just 15 minutes, expressing disbelief at the final product.
Despite the criticism, some users see potential in Project Dragon and hope that the game will improve over time. Yuga Labs, known for its various game releases such as Dookey Labs, Trip 1, Trip 2, and the upcoming Dookey Dash sequel, raised $450 million in March 2022 to fund its metaverse project, Otherside. However, the company faced challenges, including giving up intellectual property rights to certain games and announcing employee layoffs this year. Yuga Labs CEO Greg Solano acknowledged that the game would be chaotic, as it was playtested with only a few hundred players before launching to over a thousand.
Despite the chaotic launch, Solano remained positive and emphasized that the game would continue to evolve over time. The Project Dragon launch was the first of many events planned for the coming months, promising an always-evolving experience for players through demos. To play the game, players were required to log in with their X account and choose a Yuga Labs ID and an NFT from a selection of 13 sets, including Bored Ape Yacht Club, Otherdeed, Grailed Moonbirds, Meebits, and HV-MTL.
In conclusion, Project Dragon’s debut showcased both the potential and challenges of NFT gaming in the metaverse. Despite the mixed reception and criticism of bugs and lag, players and industry experts remain hopeful for the game’s future iterations. Yuga Labs continues to iterate and improve on their games, aiming to deliver a fully functional metaverse experience to players. As the gaming industry evolves and embraces NFT technology, projects like Project Dragon will be instrumental in shaping the future of gaming in the digital realm.
