Interoperability sat at the heart of the early NFT story, and it drew people in. The pitch was simple. Buy an avatar and use it in a range of different virtual experiences, collect a piece of digital art and show it off wherever you spend time online. One identity, one set of items, many places to use them. That clarity resonated with fans and with brands who saw new ways to reward loyalty and build community, however as the reality set in, the vision of many projects never came to fruition: Collections lived on different chains, assets used different file formats, art styles clashed, and there were very few shared ways to describe how characters move or how items behave. Brand teams also had a fair concern. If anyone can bring anything into your world, how do you keep experiences on brand and age appropriate?
Since NFT mania cooled, brands have been in building mode, laying the groundwork for genuinely interoperable futures. Yuga’s Otherside is a clear example. The team has opened the doors not only for its own collections but for outside communities as well. The public ODK documentation sets out a simple path to bring characters into Otherside. Prepare a GLB, submit it for review, complete a tech test, then go live. Furthermore, under the hood, avatars are wrapped in Metaverse Markup Language, MML, which is an open source format for interactive objects and characters, designed so the same asset can work across any experience that adopts the standard. The signal is clear. Otherside is for everyone, and the docs are live for builders who want in. Projects like Geez are already stepping through, and this week Yuga invited more creators to start building avatars for the project, a healthy sign that third party characters are welcome inside a flagship world.
Interoperability is not just about creator tools though, it is about meeting players where they already spend time. My Neighbor Alice worked with Pudgy Penguins to bring Pudgy characters into a new Pudgy Land region with themed quests and full 3D counterparts for holders. As Steve Haßenpflug vice president of games at ChromaWay and My Neighbor Alice explained “Now, Pudgy holders can see their own unique NFTs come to life in game, interact with the world, enjoy exclusive gameplay” a concise summary of why this matters for users and for brands. The crossover also introduced Pudgy IP to players who might not have known it before, which is exactly the kind of discovery brands want.
Across projects built on MSquared, including Otherside, interoperability is starting to feel real. In Jitter’s Twitch event, players swapped the default characters or avatars for their own MML wrapped creations, showing how collections can follow fans into new moments.
On the brand side, Automobili Lamborghini’s Fast ForWorld shows how digital vehicles move beyond a single hub. Cars purchased in Fast ForWorld are playable across partner titles in Animoca Brands’ Motorverse, including Revv Racing and Torque Drift 2, so owners can race, showcase, and collect across supported games while their identity and provenance stay intact. For the brand, this turns a one off drop into an always on engagement programme, you meet fans inside the worlds they already love, you compound reach through partners rather than rebuilding from scratch each time, and you create more chances to capture preference and first party insight over time.
For the space to reach the vision of an open metaverse, projects need to contribute to and adopt open and well supported formats so identity can persist across experiences and brands also need reassurance that allowing external IP will not damage their reputation or expose their audience to content that is either not on brand, or inappropriate for their audience: Clear policies, simple controls for outside assets, and fast escalation for takedowns are essential, supported by services that index and verify ownership across chains and apply rules in real time.
For users, portable assets mean more places to play, perform, and show up with the same identity. Your avatar, car, or artwork does not reset at the border of each world, it comes with you, unlocks perks, and builds a visible history of where it has been. That utility makes ownership feel tangible, and as items become useful in more places, collections can gain perceived value over time. For brands, the same portability lowers the cost of engagement and speeds up collaboration. You can activate the same items across partner worlds, extend campaigns without starting from scratch, and turn a one off drop into a long running programme that keeps people coming back. The tech is still evolving, but the path is clear. Adopt open, well supported formats, set firm rules and moderation, and design content for reuse across worlds. Do that and you create better experiences for holders and better economics for your brand.