Anyone who knows me knows that I won’t shut up about Supernatural, a virtual reality workout app for the Meta Quest that makes working out feel like less of a slog and more like playing Guitar Hero with your body. This fitness game is a true communal experience, whether I’m chasing high scores on the leaderboards, sharing sweaty selfies with its very active Facebook group or getting more and more of my friends addicted to working out in VR. But as fun as it is to share Supernatural with others, the app has never offered a way to actually exercise with your friends in real-time — until now.
After several years and countless impassioned internet comments from fans, the team has finally introduced Supernatural Together, a new multiplayer workout mode that lets up to three people smash targets to music in unison while tackling team-specific challenges. I got an early?hands-on demo of the new feature ahead of its launch today that left me sweaty, impressed and itching to get back in the headset with all my Supernatural pals.
Our favorite VR headset, the Meta Quest 3 is the best way to experience Supernatural — and its new pricing gets you more storage for your money.
The new Meta Quest 3S gets you most of the Quest 3's key features for a lower price, as long as you're cool with less storage and a simpler display.
A fun workout made better with friends
For the uninitiated, Supernatural is a virtual reality fitness experience in which you break a sweat by hitting targets to music. It works on the Meta Quest 2, Meta Quest 3 and the newly revealed Meta Quest 3S and costs $10 a month or $100 a year — not a bad deal compared to a typical gym membership. You can choose from hundreds of boxing workouts or dancey “Flow” routines, each of which have varying intensity levels and cover everything from classic rock to modern hip-hop and pop. Supernatural Together brings that same experience to a multiplayer setting with some unique twists, and based on my early demo time, it does a great job turning VR exercise into a group activity.
Before I could start sweating it out, it was time to make an avatar so that my workout partner could see me flailing around from the other side of the country. I really dig Supernatural’s approach to avatars. Instead of making a photorealistic replica of yourself (like the Apple Vision Pro’s eerie “personas”) or a cartoon caricature (like Meta’s own avatars), you simply create a faceless, human-shaped silhouette that you can customize with different colors and effects. This makes it easy to see what your friends are doing — and give them a quick wave hello — without being too distracting or uncanny. Naturally, I made myself purple, with some cool blue sparks coming out of my hands every time I swung them around.
After entering a quick invite code, I was instantly transported to a lobby where I could chat with my California-based colleague (voice chat is opt-in, so you don’t have to talk to or hear each other if you don’t want to). We started with an introductory workout featuring the smash chant-along pop bop “Hot to Go!” by Chappell Roan — whose Supernatural debut is the real biggest news of the week, if you ask me. After struggling to contain my excitement and doing a quick warmup alongside my workout buddy, it was time to sweat.
Supernatural Together workouts will be very familiar to anyone who already uses the app, until you suddenly find yourself in a Challenge Zone or Victory Tunnel — effectively bonus rounds where the difficulty (and the points) are ramped up for small sections of a song. My partner and I were laughing in commiseration as we fought through these zones, especially during a hard rock boxing workout in which we were tasked to do knee strikes at a speed that I don’t think human beings can actually pull off (or maybe I’m just bad at them, who’s to say).
This kind of thrilling high-score coordination took me back to the euphoria of playing Rock Band with my high school pals, except with fewer plastic instruments and a lot more sweat. As someone who’s been using Supernatural for close to four years, suddenly having someone to cheer you on — or laugh with you as you both run out of breath — is a really welcome addition.
Multiple ways to play with pals — or make new ones
Supernatural Together has its own dedicated set of workouts for up to three players, each of whom can select their own intensity level between light, medium and heavy. That latter part is a pretty big deal; I have a few friends that are newly obsessed with Supernatural, and I love that we’ll all be able to play together at our own pace without anyone feeling like they’re overdoing it (not to brag, but I don’t know if everyone can keep up with my all-High Intensity lifestyle).
Also, no sweat if you don’t have any Supernatural-addicted pals. In addition to invite codes, there’s also a Quick Play option that will match you up with a workout companion.
It’s worth noting that Supernatural is far from the only VR game that lets you get moving with friends on your Meta Quest 2, 3 or 3S. There’s the wildly popular Beat Saber for a more arcade-style experience with up to five people, as well as FitXR which has a wider range of workout styles and a more competition-focused real-time leaderboard with support for up to six athletes. It’s worth trying them all — I still play a good bit of Beat Saber and have enjoyed FitXR in the past — but I’m excited to finally have multiplayer in the app I’m already deeply invested in.
The new Meta Quest 3S gives you a more affordable way to work out
If a $500 headset seems like a steep investment for working out at home, we’ve got some good news. This big Supernatural update arrives alongside the brand new Meta Quest 3S, a cheaper version of Meta’s flagship headset that makes some fairly minimal sacrifices for a much more attainable $300 starting price. You still get the same mixed-reality capabilities that blend the real and virtual worlds (like seeing your Supernatural coaches in your actual living room, for example), and you can expect the same reliable performance as the Quest 3, thanks to the Snapdragon XR2 Gen 2 chip packed inside.
The standard Quest 3 is still the way to go if you want the most internal storage (up to 512GB versus up to 256GB) or the most advanced display, but the Quest 3S seems like a great value that gets you the same features and excellent software library for a much lower price. If you’re interested, Meta’s new headset is up for preorder now ahead of its Oct. 15 release date.
With the arrival of the Quest 3S, the Meta Quest 2 (a longtime favorite of ours) and Meta Quest Pro are officially being sunsetted. Meta plans on continuing to sell what’s left of them until they’re gone, but unless you find an absurdly good deal, we’d recommend future-proofing yourself with a Quest 3 or 3S, especially since software support for the older headsets is starting to wind down.
Bottom line
Supernatural Together couldn’t be arriving at a better time. My dear friend (and Underscored electronics writer) Henry T. Casey just started his Supernatural journey, and instead of being limited to chasing each other on the leaderboards, we can just hop in a workout and play together now. Supernatural was already one of the most social activities I do — I’ve made countless personal and professional connections on this app — and now it’s even easier to share with the people I care about. Who said VR has to be isolating?
If you own a Meta Quest and are curious what the hype is about, you can try Supernatural for free for up to 14 days before committing to a $10-per-month or $100-per-year subscription. Better yet, you can score a discounted $50 rate for your first year with the purchase of a new Meta Quest 3 headset.
Between a new entry-level model and a constantly growing library of great games and apps, there are a lot of excellent reasons to pick up what’s long been our best VR headset pick. But the fact that it’s made exercise-averse people like me love working out — both alone and with friends — is certainly my favorite one.
