AC thVRsday
In his weekly column, Android Central Senior Content Producer Nick Sutrich delves into all things VR, from new hardware to new games, upcoming technologies, and so much more.
In a move that I never saw coming, Supernatural is coming back from the dead, and its founders and coaches are starting a completely independent company for the relaunch.
The news sideswiped me mid-morning on Wednesday when the Facebook community’s post (via Good Virtual Reality) was published, and it’s the biggest VR news to hit since Meta closed most of its internal studios back in January.
As you probably guessed, one of those studios was Within, the house that made Supernatural and was acquired by Meta (then Facebook) back in 2021. Despite a landmark legal battle between the FTC and Meta over the acquisition, Meta washed its hands of what it used to claim was “the future of at-home workouts.” But because of a thriving, outspoken online community, Supernatural is coming back, and this time it’s fully free of Meta’s clutches.
What made Supernatural special
Supernatural’s original April 2020 launch couldn’t have been more timely. Most of the world had shut down due to COVID. People weren’t leaving their homes, weren’t going to work, and definitely weren’t going to the gym, but Supernatural quickly paved the way for people to stay fit at home and still get that coach-led experience they’d been sorely missing. My genuine first impression is pictured above, and it tells you everything you need to know.
Supernatural isn’t (or wasn’t) just a realistic-looking Beat Saber clone. Each day brought a new coach-led workout, filled with popular music, gorgeous vistas, and gameplay that rewarded those who put in 100% effort. As Russell Holly put it when he wrote about it that May, “I’m dripping in sweat, every inch of me is sore, and I have a huge smile on my face.”
At the time, I had never gone to a coach-led gym class and, quite frankly, had very little interest in such things. Russell’s recommendation, along with the fervent recommendations from the VR community at large, convinced me to try it. I spent the next several months playing it every day, and I quickly realized the power a coach’s voice had. It, along with my wife, pushed me into a substantially healthier lifestyle than I had ever had.
And I’m far, far from alone in that sentiment. The official Supernatural Facebook community has over 113,000 members, and the responses to this week’s news have been overwhelmingly positive. “No! I’m not crying at work!” reads one post, and nearly all of the replies are the same. “I cried too.” “Definitely crying! This app changed my life.” “I’m crying at work!!!!”
It’s because Supernatural wasn’t just an excellent, coach-led daily workout. It was an entire community of people who found a way to make working out fun and share in those wins together. People encouraged each other. They cried with each other. They won with each other, and the unceremonious plug-pulling that Meta did in January 2026 was more than just heartbreaking to those folks. It was the end of something that changed their lives for the better.
What’s the new Supernatural going to look like?
Supernatural is returning, and while most important parts of the experience will remain, plenty of things will undoubtedly change. The team isn’t shying away from saying that this isn’t the same old app under new management. It’s OG management taking back the reins and creating something new (and hopefully better) in the process.
Per the official Supernatural website, your favorite coaches will be back “on day one,” new workouts and future features will be built using feedback, and the community will be central to the entire experience. Since the coaches need to be paid for their ongoing work, Supernatural will still be a subscription-only experience, but fans can lock in a “founder’s rate” by registering interest in the relaunch, which is currently slated for the fall of 2026.
The standard rate is going up to $20 per month or $200 per year, but let’s be real: there’s no chance you’ll ever find a coach-led gym class that’s just $20 a month. Even if you need financial aid to cover the cost, Supernatural Scholarships will be available to help.
While specific platforms haven’t yet been announced, Supernatural will still be a “VR workout app.” That almost undoubtedly means Meta Quest first, since it’s a fully standalone, wireless VR console, but now that Supernatural is free of Meta’s funding and influence, it may also mean it comes to other VR platforms.
“We’re returning to our roots and plan to build major parts of the technology from the ground up as a much smaller company,” says the Supernatural team, and that tells me that this game will almost certainly be less reliant on Meta’s proprietary development tools and, instead, built in a way that’s more sustainable for future growth.
There’s no chance the core gameplay loop changes, although I imagine plenty of new ideas from the community can be implemented in this rebuilt Supernatural. As licenced, popular music was one of the core facets of what made Supernatural so uniquely powerful, I also doubt that we’ll see any real change in the soundtrack.
Regardless of the specifics, one thing is certain: Supernatural is back, the community is on fire for the new direction of its favorite workout app, and VR fitness is about to have a full-on renaissance this fall. The real question is whether other now-defunct Meta studios will also see this kind of revival, as well.