Yuga Labs has taken a major step toward bringing its metaverse ambitions fully in-house. The company has acquired the Unreal Engine-based platform used to build Otherside from technology firm Improbable, along with a permanent license to the high-concurrency multiplayer tech that has powered the project’s largest demos. As part of the deal, a large portion of the original development team behind the platform is expected to join Yuga Labs in early 2026. The acquisition was confirmed by Yuga Labs co-founder Greg Solano, who said the move gives the company direct control over the tools and systems that underpin Otherside.
Until now, the metaverse project has relied on Improbable’s infrastructure to support large-scale multiplayer experiences. By owning the platform outright and licensing the underlying networking technology on a permanent basis, Yuga is removing an external dependency that had become central to its long-term plans. Otherside is built on Unreal Engine and designed as a persistent multiplayer world tied closely to Yuga’s NFT ecosystem. Full ownership of the platform allows Yuga to iterate faster, adjust development priorities internally, and align engineering decisions more closely with gameplay and creator needs.
The company has framed the acquisition as a way to accelerate development while continuing to scale the world’s technical limits. One of Otherside’s defining goals has been scale. Earlier in 2025, the project hosted a shooter demo known as Project Dragon that set a Guinness World Record with more than 2,100 players active in a single shared server. That test relied heavily on Improbable’s high-concurrency technology, which is now licensed to Yuga on a permanent basis.
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