In my quiet moments on difficult winter days, I try to put on my Meta Quest VR headset for just half an hour. It's not to play games or watch movies. It's so I can move.
Supernatural, a subscription fitness service acquired by Meta in 2021, has been the closest thing to a "Peloton for VR" that I've ever tried. It's not the only VR fitness app out there, not by a long shot: Beat Saber, FitXR, Les Mills BodyCombat, Thrill of the Fight, Synth Riders and Starwave are just a few others.
But the one that reached out to me, pushed me further, the one I chose, was Supernatural. This fitness app became a comfort zone and a motivator for me. I started to lean into the personality of its trainers, who felt like they were there for me. It made me want to try working out more consistently. Supernatural was the only thing that made me take my Quest on vacation. It was my Editors' Choice for VR fitness experiences, and it's part of what made me feel the Quest headsets were well worth the price of admission.
Supernatural's mix of licensed music with rhythm boxing and dancing, set in 3D landscapes, is beautiful. But the coaches, projected as 3D video presences who speak to you during the routines, elevate the experience in ways that surprised me. And the app's pairing with heart rate tracking made it something I could actually monitor my workouts with.
And now, basically, it's gone.
Not gone gone: The Supernatural app is still live. But following Meta's recent Reality Labs layoffs, Supernatural has been moved to "maintenance mode," meaning no new workouts, music, or words of encouragement from the coaches. It's a "zombie app," a frozen monument in a metaverse Meta seems increasingly eager to abandon. For all intents and purposes, it's dead. As dead as Meta's former fitness tracking app on Quest, which vanished last year.
And as VR looks like it's slowly being abandoned by Meta in favor of glasses, I remind myself that VR has survived waves of supposed near-death experiences before. But if Meta continues like this, what will VR apps even look like next? Will any of those we recognize even be left?
Meta clearly wants to get to glasses, but how many of Quest's services will even make the leap? Numi Prasarn/CNET
Pivot on the metaverse
This isn't the first time Meta has shut down games and studios. We watched Echo Arena, a wonderful, free, competitive, social, zero-gravity frisbee game, disappear years ago. This time, Meta's layoffs also included the closure of several other prominent game studios the company acquired, which made some of the best Quest games of the past few years, including Asgard's Wrath II, Batman: Arkham Shadow, and Deadpool VR. But Supernatural's decline hits me hardest.
... continue reading