Meta Acquires Supernatural Developer Within

Supernatural VR game
Source: Oculus

Facebook’s—pardon—Meta’s push toward the metaverse continues with the acquisition of Within, the developers of the popular VR workout game Supernatural.

“Today, I’m happy to announce that Within (along with Supernatural) have entered into an agreement to join Meta,” announced Jason Rubin, VP of Play at Oculus. “We believe fitness will be a massive success in VR where multiple third-party fitness apps can succeed,” he added.

The team behind Supernatural will continue to operate independently as part of Reality Labs, where it will be working on new features and creative ways to work out. Together, Meta wants to explore how it could make its hardware better for VR workout games.

Supernatural launched in April 2020 as an exercise and wellness app that strives to make workouts fun and interactive. It won TIME’s Best Fitness Invention 2020 award, and it now enjoys a rating of only 4.5 stars out of 5 on the Oculus Quest store.

Unlike other rhythm games, Supernatural provides full-body workouts that target all major muscle groups, not just those on the upper body. Players can choose from a variety of different songs spanning multiple music genres and pair them with a variety of photo-realistic environments, from Machu Picchu to the surface of Mars.

“We, and the team at Supernatural, envision a bright future where people are excited to show up for their daily workout, tap into their inner athlete, and connect with a huge community of support. We can’t wait for what’s ahead.”

According to a recent report published by Allied Market Research, the global VR fitness market is projected to reach $59,231 million by 2027, up from just $6,046 million in 2019. Meta clearly wants to capture as much of this market as early as possible, hoping it will be one of the most popular use cases of virtual reality and the metaverse it wants to create.

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