A tech video demo of a monkey running around in what appears to be an open world environment has been released. It was created by Improbable, a British metaverse company that’s developing “high-density, large-scale virtual worlds” and has £1 billion pounds of high-profile funding behind it.
£1billion is five times the amount that was required to developed what is arguably the best open world game ever—Rockstar’s acclaimed Grand Theft Auto 5.
The official Improbable Twitter handle released the tech demo which is called ’First Trip’. The 36-second clip shows a monkey running around Bored Ape Yacht Club’s WIP Otherside metaverse for which they are helping to craft.
In the video UI elements show how players could potentially emote and chat with other players as text appear on the left-hand side of the screen, as per many online games.
Fragments of an Obelisk have washed ashore in the Biogenic Swamp. Voyagers, your Otherdeed is your key to helping build the Otherside metaverse. As we reassemble the Obelisk together, the Otherside comes to life.https://t.co/puBUVnqRr0 pic.twitter.com/8Cay7WknAW
— OthersideMeta (@OthersideMeta) May 12, 2022
The creators, Improbable has received funding from high-profile tech investors such as Japanese tech giant SoftBank and Andreessen Horowitz, raising $150 million in an investment round last month.
Making the metaverse
Founded in 2012, Improbable has received considerable amount of media coverage in recent years due to the growing hype surrounding the metaverse. The company is using its funds to develop what it calls M2: “a network of interoperable metaverses powered by its Morpheus technology”.
This technology is aiming create an online world that could hold very large numbers of users at the same time. Currently, popular multiplayer online games such as Fortnite and PUBG can host around 100 players on the same server, but Improbable is aiming for more than 10,000 online players in a shared space.
However, the untitled game is still only a tech demo that is well funded. If it’s this stunning at night, we can’t wait to get another video demo that gives us a glimpse of the monkey running around in daytime.
Many behemoth tech firms have spent billions in developing the metaverse such as the likes of Epic Games, Tencent, and Microsoft. Although amongst them, Meta might just be the most determined considering it had to change its company name to solidify its new direction.
Isa Muhammad is a writer and video game journalist covering many aspects of entertainment media including the film industry. He's steadily writing his way to the sharp end of journalism and enjoys staying informed. If he's not reading, playing video games or catching up on his favourite TV series, then he's probably writing about them.
