His jetpack spits out whatever gusts of wind are still in its chamber, but it’s not enough. His head tilts down, and like an arrow just beginning to feel the touch of gravity, he accelerates toward the red-dusted floor. Rocks just from the surface. You know he won’t survive the impact. You utter a violent scream, hoping that somehow your voice would carry a mattress to soften the landing. You run towards him. Maybe, you think, you could grab him just before he falls. Still, you’re screaming.

You hear your wife’s voice telling you to be quiet. You place your hands on your head and feel the straps of your virtual reality headset. You slip your fingers between the straps and tear the headset off your face. “You did it again,” she says. “You’re going to wake the neighbors.” Far from being an excerpt from a science fiction novel, many think this passage will soon describe real-life events of the Metaverse, a third world where virtual and physical realities meld into one. 

In the last year, the world has witnessed several of the Metaverse’s many forms. Justin Beiber Ariana Grande and Travis Scott have shown the Metaverse’s ability to mitigate physical boundaries by allowing users to virtually interact in hyper-realistic concerts. Digital stores in the Metaverse, which have won over brands like Nike Inc. (NYSE:NKE) and Dolce & Gabanna, have shown how the Metaverse can be another venue for digitalized commercial products. 

The Metaverse’s immense commercial prowess and growth potential have invited a fight amongst the creators building the world of the future. Two strong contenders in this space are Unity Software Inc. (NYSE:U) and Unreal Engine. According to Dizraptor analysts, there’s one clear winner in the race, and the pre-IPO investing platform can give investors early opportunity to capitalize on the growth of the world’s next biggest 3D creator for the Metaverse.

While the technology remains in its early stages, the entrepreneurial crown is still up for grabs, and people everywhere are scrambling to snatch it. Amongst the most promising candidates in this search are the creators of the worlds themselves. Like every house needs an architect and an engineer, every Metaverse will need creators to form the components of virtual worlds. Not only that – the components need to be extremely well-made for the Metaverse to sustain a “real-world feel.”

That caliber of talent in 3D creation is scarce, but Unity Software and Unreal Engine have stood out amongst the rest. Both companies have created an incredible creation-driven infrastructure, suctioning a talented workforce and leveraging it to pump out innovations. Unity’s augmented-reality twist to Pokemon Go, for example, reached millions across the globe. Similarly, Epic Games’ Unreal Engine platform helped shape Fortnite, one of the world’s most successful metaverse games to date.

• Infrastructure: The foundational components of the Metaverse, which include 5G, WiFi and Cloud Services.
• Human Interface: The hardware components of the Metaverse, including mobiles, wearables and haptics.
• Decentralization: The technology that ushers Metaverse components away from centrality, including blockchain and artificial intelligence.
• Spatial Computing: The tools to generate realistic physical-virtual worlds and the interconnectivity between those two domains.
• Creator Economy: The infrastructure to incentivize creators via monetization through design tools, asset markets, and general commerce.
• Discovery: The social component of the Metaverse, bringing stakeholders together through communication structures like ads, social gatherings, stores and others.
• Experience: The tangible Metaverse products like games, social applications and digital shopping platforms.

Unity and Epic Games operate at different stacks of the Metaverse Lasagna. Because Unreal Engine creates its own games, for example, it fits within the “Experience” layer of the Metaverse Lasagna, while Unity does not because it does not sell games. The two also differ in which areas they specialize in within the Layers. For example, both projects are active in the “Discovery” phase, but Unity allows discovery via advertisements while Unreal Engine promotes discovery through in-game stores, social curation and ratings.