When it comes to designing a metaverse map, it’s more about the vibe than practicality. From space pods to jungle islands and celebrity neighbors, users want to feel like they are someplace special.

What considerations go into designing a metaverse platform? Insiders explain that one key factor is that virtual worlds need to be created with features familiar to their human users — even if such elements, like beaches and nature preserves, offer no practical benefits in virtual reality. Old habits die hard, and people prefer spaces that are familiar and, ideally, neighboring a celebrity like Snoop Dogg.

Alexis Christodoulou, a 3D architect who has been creating virtual spaces for 10 years and NFTs for two, recently got the job to design 2117, a space-themed metaverse platform imagining the United Arab Emirate’s stated goal to colonize Mars in the year 2117.

“If I was told to just build a metaverse, I’d have had a proper nervous breakdown — starting with a space pod was intuitive.”

Outer space, like the metaverse itself, is a foreign environment for humans. Looking 100 years into the future, it is easy to imagine a creepy, inhuman, alien-like ship without many points of familiarity. Instead, Christodoulou has aimed to form the environment into one that appears comfortable, familiar and inviting. 

Noticing that…