In this review, I’m going to talk about Supernatural vs VRWorkout, two popular VR workout games available for the Meta Quest.
I’ll go over some features about both games I like, room for improvement, and overall which game gave me the better workout!
On first glance, these two games might not seem all that comparable. Supernatural has a full production team creating curated content, contests, and features to help justify its price point. VRWorkout is created by a single developer and is only available if you sideload it onto your Quest.
However, both games have the same purpose which is to help you get fit wearing only your Meta Quest. They both also happened to be released towards the beginning of the pandemic and lots of people online have been asking for a good comparison for the two.
These two games are both featured in our overall guide for best VR fitness game.
So let’s take a look!
Supernatural Overview
In Supernatural, you stand on a platform surrounded by some of the most gorgeous landscapes in the world. Your VR controllers turn into over-sized baseball bats, which feels conveniently similar to Beat Saber. Personalized coaches lead you through workouts where you use your bats to smash through blocks in specific directions. You also have to squat and perform side-to-side lunges as well.
The entire Supernatural experience moves in time with your music soundtrack, which changes every day and includes real popular songs licensed through Spotify. Each day’s music has a different theme, but the exercises and movements stay the same.
Supernatural VR also has a companion app that keeps track of your workouts and lets you sync up with friends too.
VRWorkout Overview
VRWorkout recently changed its name to XRWorkout, and with that came a slew of improvements to its VR fitness app. Although the graphics and presentation are still cartoonish compared to other apps, the fitness portion remains one of the best VR fitness apps available.
The game features full hand tracking, meaning you don’t have to worry about holding controllers during your workout. There are a variety of workouts to choose from, and XRWorkout also customizes workouts for you so that no two workouts are ever the same. This helps keep your workouts fresh and introduces new workouts into your routine.
If you are ever feeling lost, XRWorkout has detailed exercise tutorials in the main menu to help you feel comfortable completing them. The game keeps track of your score in the top left-hand corner, and you will gain more points depending on how well you complete the workout correctly.
There is a new mixed reality mode, where you can see your surroundings as well as the VR screen. This will help users who frequently experience motion sickness. You can also challenge your friends to community workouts, which helps keep you motivated and engaged.
Both Supernatural and XRWorkout are available on the Meta Quest headset.
Supernatural vs VRWorkout
Variety of Exercises
Supernatural recently included boxing as one of its new workouts and all of its previous ones. You will work your upper and lower body during the boxing workout by learning basic boxing techniques. Various music styles, such as hip-hop, pop, and rock, are available for different workout flows.
Along with boxing, Supernatural offers its original flow workout, where you swing bats in a high-intensity movement and try to hit targets to earn you more points. Supernatural also features a meditation and stretching workout, where your personal trainer guides you through your workout.
Even with the addition of boxing, meditation, and stretching, Supernatural can sometimes lack intensity. It depends on how hard you go, but I barely break a sweat after a workout anymoret. Supernatural offers a solid VR exercise, but if you are looking for a wider variety of fitness workouts, you may want to look elsewhere. If Supernatural keeps adding more workouts over time, it would be a better app overall.
With XRWorkout, I found that it featured a more extensive variety of high-intensity, full-body workouts. It features exercises like running, punching, squatting, crunches, and burpees. These high-intensity, low-rest workouts are much more challenging, and you are sure to burn more calories because of them.
XRWorkout also automatically generates your workouts, ensuring that no two sessions are the same. This is great for getting you into a fitness routine that doesn’t feel manageable.
XRWorkout also makes it incredibly easy to learn any exercises you may not be familiar with. They have in-depth tutorials where a trainer shows you how to do everything correctly. This is great not only to learn new exercises but to ensure you are doing them correctly so that you aren’t injuring yourself. Custom songs are included in the app, but they also have a free play mode where you can exercise your background music.
Lastly, XRWorkout is based on hand tracking, meaning you don’t have to hold any controllers during your workout. This makes your experience more immersive and frees your hands up for your workouts.
Verdict: XRWorkout features a better selection of exercises and relies on hand tracking to provide an overall better experience.
Music
Supernatural features one of the most robust music soundtracks in a VR fitness app, primarily due partly to their partnership with Universal Music Group. They feature hundreds of licensed songs by top artists in various genres, from hip-hop to jazz to electronic.
Having music you can recognize gives Supernatural a lot of replay value. Supernatural also features many popular international artists.
Supernatural also recently introduced artist-specific playlists, allowing you to listen to one specific artist for the entirety of your workout. The amount of music that Supernatural features is staggering compared to other apps, and I imagine it isn’t cheap, so this is an excellent feature for selling this VR fitness game.
Out of the box, XRWorkout does not contain any real music tracks, which some people may find negative. By default, a few license-free tracks are included with the game. They are okay to workout to, but they don’t give the same feeling as Supernatural’s curated playlist.
XRWorkout allows you to import your custom songs into the game, but that extra step can be tedious, especially for someone who wants to load the game up and get started on their workout immediately.
Verdict: Supernatural features one of the most extensive licensed music libraries in VR fitness apps, making them an excellent choice.
Presentation
The presentation in Supernatural is top-tier. You play each song standing on a platform overlooking some of the most beautiful scenery in the world. Your personalized coaches call you “athlete” and offer encouragement throughout each song.
At the end of each round in Supernatural, you are assessed on your accuracy and power. If you have an Apple Watch, you can sync it to Supernatural, and it will tell you your active heart rate through each song.
Supernatural also features a top-tier online store, where they sell branded apparel, workout mats, and more. They also have Meta Quest headset bundles, with which you can save 50% off your first-year subscription.
Although XRWorkout has updated a lot since the name change, its presentation is still inferior to Supernatural’s. The graphics are quite amateur-looking compared to the scenery in Supernatural. But if this isn’t a big deal to you, it shouldn’t affect your workout.
The score tracking is much improved in XRWorkout, and you can also now challenge your friends to community workouts, which is a nice touch. It shows you a leaderboard after each person completes the workout.
XRWorkout still has an active Discord, where feature requests and discussions occur. The developer does all of his work in his spare time and is responsive to feedback from everyone.
Verdict: Although XRWorkout has improved its presentation, Supernatural still takes the cake.
Gameplay
Nice presentation is great, but Supernatural vs VRWorkout, how does Gameplay stack up?
Supernatural has done a great job with the workouts they offer. The new boxing workout is fun and lets you learn the basics. It is also an excellent workout for working up sweat and burning some calories.
The Flow workout operates the same as before, as hitting targets feels natural once you get used to the entire motion. Since everything is in time to the music, you often hit combinations you didn’t think you could by following each beat.
The Meditation and Stretching workouts are also a nice touch and put you into an immersive environment to stay calm. They teach you nice basic stretching exercises that are great for warming up and cooling down to relax your muscles.
Supernatural is mostly a cardio workout that can burn a decent amount of calories. It is nothing too high-intensity, and someone with even the most basic exercise experience can breeze through it.
XRWorkout’s gameplay is highly engaging and high-intensity. The targets you have to hit on the screen are also in places where you must complete the exercise correctly. This is excellent to ensure you are not doing the exercise incorrectly and is something other VR workout apps don’t do good enough.
XRWorkout is a full-body workout, and workouts are varied enough so that you aren’t doing the exact same thing each time. You can set the intensity in the menu beforehand, depending on how hard you want to go. You will most likely burn more calories on XRWorkout than on Supernatural.
Price
Price has always been the most significant discrepancy between the Supernatural and XRWorkout fitness apps. Supernatural recently dropped its price to $9.99/month, which is much better than the $18.99/month it was before.
Your willingness to pay for Supernatural depends on how much you value the personalized coaches and music that Supernatural has to offer. This does help their case a little bit, but it still may turn people away who don’t prefer to avoid paying a monthly subscription for something like this.
XRWorkout is completely free and can be installed onto the Quest headset via SideQuest. If you are already active and don’t require much motivation, you’ll like how easy it is to get up and running with XRWorkout.
If you like to support independent development, consider donating to the developer for his time. It would be great to see XRWorkout accessories and an online store, too.
Verdict: XRWorkout being completely free is hard to beat, especially with its features.
Room for Improvement
Supernatural vs VRWorkout, both games have some room for improvement.
Supernatural
Outside of the price, one of the most significant drawbacks of the Supernatural VR fitness app is the lack of various workouts. While the app offers a range of workout types like Flow, Boxing, Meditation, and Stretching, there is no way for you to customize your workouts or do anything other than what is listed. This is one of the biggest complaints of this app because you are stuck with what they give you.
The price is still a drawback of Supernatural, but not as much. The app recently reduced its monthly subscription price to $9.99 instead of $18.99. However, many free fitness apps are available, which may deter someone from trying out Supernatural.
The price of Supernatural coincides with the heavily licensed music. If Supernatural had an option for less music and a few fewer workouts, I think they would see an uptick in subscribers.
Lastly, there is heart rate monitoring. Although an Apple Watch pairs nicely with the Supernatural app to track your heart rate, many Android users need help finding compatible smartwatches. The app should have an easier way to track your heart rate.
XRWorkout
XRWorkout’s presentation is its biggest drawback in attracting casual players. It could take some obvious cues from Supernatural to improve its presentation and polish things up. A better training arena and clearer post-workout screen would be nice. Letting you put multiple songs into a playlist would also allow smoother transitions between songs.
Although you can upload your custom songs into the game, it would be nice if XRWorkout came pre-loaded with licensed music to skip that step. The free songs they include aren’t bad, but if you enjoy listening to real songs, this may not be the game for you.
For workouts, XRWorkout is already the most superior VR fitness app in terms of a variety of exercises. Hand targets could be improved and made more prominent so they are easier to palm. The game could also add directional targets you must swing through or punch (jab, uppercut, cross-body, etc) for even more variety.
Some VR workout games could provide some good inspiration for XRWorkout, including Supernatural, BoxVR, Thrill of the Fight, OhShape, and more.
Conclusion – So, Which is Better?
Overall, both Supernatural and XRWorkout are great workout apps. A beginner who needs motivation and likes a more customized approach will appreciate Supernatural as their starting point. I have trouble justifying a full-year subscription, but a month-to-month approach isn’t too bad..
VRWorkout is the better overall workout app. It offers a better variety of exercises and burns more calories in the same time. It could use further presentation improvements, which are minor to overlook in a workout game versus a different genre. It also takes a lot of work to look past its free price point and responsiveness from the developer.
For most people, virtual reality workouts supplement other workout routines and are not the only form of exercise in your life. Because of this, the free, no-commitment approach of XRWorkout will feel better for you. This isn’t a knock on Supernatural, either. They’ve created an exciting product, a good community, and a respectable VR fitness game. It will take a lot of work to justify a long-term commitment to an at-home fitness game that costs the same as a Netflix subscription.
