Thrill Of The Fight is VR’s Most Intense Workout

For those that prefer an Audio/Visual experience. This article is also on Youtube.

That is a very bold statement, sure. There are a lot of VR games on the Oculus Quest 2 suitable for exercise out there. Some are crafted specifically for the purpose of exercise. Those tend to be the more boring games. Others are entertainment that just so happen to make your sweat glands cry furiously and your muscles ache. Often without even realizing it. Those are the great VR workout games.

They are the antithesis of Peloton instructors and follow-along Youtube workout videos. They are fitness that doesn’t feel like fitness. They are the future of exercise. Simply put, they are fun and don’t feel like a chore necessary for health and a long life. Thrill Of The Fight is chief among these games, if your goal is to get sweaty and sore.

Build your Body and a Skill

As Kenny Powers of Eastbound and Down once said “I’m not trying to be the best at exercising.” While the wisdom of anything Kenny says in that show is dubious at best, there is some truth to this statement. Sure feats of endurance and strength are fantastic. If a great cyclist can go 10 kilometers without breaking a sweat and in record time, well that’s both impressive and an accomplishment. If they do that purely for the sake of being able to do it better the next time, then at the end of the day there is little point to it.

Well, it’s good for your health and maybe will grant better quality and length of life. That is the implicit tagline that is filling gyms across the country. Muscles are impressive and make you feel good. Exercise causes the brain to make, and this is a point everyone should know, free drugs that make you feel good. You don’t even need to smoke or inject them. Move a little, sweat a little, free drugs locally sourced from your grey matter. A pretty good deal.

Though as with so many things VR makes this arrangement even better. Thrill Of The Fight is fun on the Quest 2 and feels like an actual fight. You get better at it, as with a cyclist or a runner, but here you also build a skill. Those skills are fighting skills. Never boxed before? Well enough Thrill of the Fight will upgrade you from being a complete amateur. You can see your progression as a fighter in every dodged punch and well placed hook. It’s easy to get into because it’s interesting, and the better you get the more you win. Just like any game that doesn’t involve exercise.

The excitement of combat is reflected here as it is in many VR titles like Battle Talent, Gladius, Gorn, and so many more. Close Quarters fighting is done better in Virtual Reality than in any other medium. It may be obvious, but this is because Virtual Reality is the closest quarters simulated reality that humans have invented. Translating a mouse click to swinging virtual hands requires some cognitive dissonance to take satisfaction out of. Swinging a real arm to cause a virtual arm to swing into an opponent’s jaw removes several levels of abstraction from the equation.

Then there is the fact that you are actually accomplishing a task. Other titles like Beat Saber and OhShape come close to this, but their goals are abstracted. Follow the rhythm, move your arms in order to chop blocks or fit yourself into a hole. These are not tasks related to anything found in real life. They are abstract and gamified in the utmost sense. In Thrill Of The Fight the goal is to win a boxing match. That’s it. Beat up your virtual opponent with your fists before he beats you up. Full Stop.

There’s technique to it as well as skill, and physical fitness plays a primary role in players’ ability to win, but the goal itself is simple and human and relatable. It is real, and everybody on Earth has at least imagined themselves in a fight if they haven’t been in one. Thrill Of The Fight does not advertise itself as a boxing trainer, but the developers do state that existing boxing skills do help achieve success in the game, and that is an extremely true statement. While the developers may not be willing to say it, here at Reality Remake we definitely are.

If you’ve never boxed a match in your life, continual playing of Thrill Of The Fight will make you a better boxer. Footwork, agility, proper form, all the things that make a good boxer will reflect in success at this game. Constant practice leads to refinement. At the very least Thrill Of The Fight will teach how to throw a stronger punch, because stronger punches are required for victory. So is strategy, thinking about how to hit and when. So is speed, and the ability to quickly dodge a punch.

These qualities are why The Thrill Of The Fight is the most intense VR workout. That is the power of an entertaining, goal oriented Virtual Reality game that requires so much physical movement. As with any other game the want to get better and to defeat challenges encourages more investment of energy and time.

Getting better at a game is satisfying, and so is winning. The Thrill Of The Fight combines this with an intense boxing match. A physical skill will show improvement, and if you’re lucky you’ll never need to dodge a punch, but enough Thrill Of The Fight will definitely help with that. Whether you intend to or not, you will end up sweating and your arms will end up sore, and you’ll love it. The desire to win, to beat the next fighter, or to climb through them to the next highest difficulty, is so strong that it pushes the player physically in ways they may never push themselves when running a treadmill or lifting a dumbbell.

Even when panting, drenched in sweat, and praying that it will be over soon, it is very hard to not go that last round and finally prove that you can knock out The Duke three times in a row and cross the hurdle to the next fighter. That power has pushed players through games since games were invented. Challenges invite creativity and a drive to win, and in Thrill Of The Fight that challenge involves moving powerfully and quickly in a way that will burn fat and calories much faster than any other Virtual Reality experience.

Science Agrees

That is an easy thing to just state and then skip over as though that proves the point of this article. Simply saying that Thrill Of The Fight is the most intense VR workout does not mean that it is, especially to anyone that has not tried it as well as all of the other intense VR games out there. There are many other Virtual Reality experiences that will give a great workout. Pistol Whip, Supernatural, and FitXR.

The aforementioned Beat Saber and OhShape. Objectively it can be said that those games generally rely on waiting for something to happen before the player responds with physical action, and so do not encourage physicality as much, but that is leaning into abstract and conceptual territory. With the proper settings Pistol Whip can be extremely intense, or a few simple arm movements and a couple of squats.

Luckily the folks over at the VR Health Institute have already asked these questions, and compiled a list of Virtual Reality games and their workout equivalents here. Thrill Of The Fight’s rating comes in at 8 to 10 calories per minute, the equivalent of rowing. It has an MET (or Metabolic Equivalent) of 9.28. Basically, the game gets you breathing really hard. While not measured by the VR Health Institute, it also gets your arms sore.

The only game to come in higher is Audioshield Modded. Unfortunately modding Audioshield is not as easy as just installing Thrill Of The Fight. Even for those willing to do so, Audioshield falls into the same trap as Beat Saber and OhShape. Players will only push themselves as hard as the game tells them to.

Thrill Of the Fight’s mechanics promote physicality, unlike those games. To win a fight early, before the last round is up, you must knock your opponent down three times in a single round. Pushing yourself to achieve this, when you have knocked them down twice and the timer is at thirty seconds, comes naturally.

Compounding the physical exertion of boxing itself is the drive to win, the desire to move higher. No stamina bar tells you when you are unable to throw another punch. Only being physically unable to throw one would stop it. In fact it is important to be careful not to overcommit to a punch and throw out a muscle. It isn’t unheard of to pull a shoulder, but still try to win the fight only using a single arm.

That is the drive provided by being faced with an opponent and a challenge. A rowing machine is easy to walk away from when you’re tired. A match you have yet to win is not.

Even though this study does not take the psychology of the game into account, second best still isn’t bad, if mods count.

But What Do The People Think?

Of course, despite these benefits, Thrill Of The Fight has not reached the popularity of something like Beat Saber, though Beat Saber is often lauded for its fitness capabilities. It is practically a meme that hours long sessions with that game will leave a player’s arms feeling like noodles. Maybe it is because Beat Saber has existing popularity, and the hardcore VR fitness community is one that is still growing. Maybe it is because Beat Saber’s integration of music and visual style is simply so much more advanced than Thrill Of The Fight. So Reality Remake took to Reddit to see if players consider Thrill Of The Fight to the be the most intense VR workout.

One thread was in r/vrfit found here.

The other was in r/ThrillOfTheFight, found here.

Here are some of the best responses. Most inspirational of all was u/Urhoal_Mygole’s reply:

This is the power of making entertainment exercise. Sure people get into fitness all of the time and turn their lives around, but with games like Thrill Of The Fight it’s so much easier to get into it. Take this reply by u/EggMcFlurry:

This comment hits the nail on the head exactly. The power of competition is so great that this game inspires exercise without even meaning to.

u/tarsus1983 feels the same way.

The response, as in any public forum, was not uniform. Though in both threads it seems that agreement with Thrill Of The Fight being the most intense was higher than disagreement. Especially, of course, in r/ThrillOfTheFight. Though the thread in r/vrfit definitely had some good recommendations for other games with high energy expenditure. Chief among which was a recommendation for Pistol Whip. As a side note, as far as exercising the legs with a similar intensity to Thrill Of The Fight, Pistol Whip is great, and so is Blaston. Even A Township Tale can make you sweat.

Conclusion

The science says that of the available games, only a modded verison of AudioShield is more intense than Thrill Of The Fight. Though AudioShield’s gameplay does not encourage pushing yourself to the limit nearly as much. Average reddit users tend to agree. The evidence of people’s lives' being changed by this boxing experience is enough. Thrill Of The Fight is chief among fitness games for its intensity. Look deeply enough into the VR fitness community and many stories similar u/Urhoal_Mygoal’s can be found. Maybe another contender will come along and take the title of “Most intense” from this boxing bonanza. Maybe not. In the meantime there’s no better place to burn a few calories, knock down a few opponents, and most importantly have some fun.

The Thrill Of The Fight by Seaslost Interactive can be purchased on the Oculus Store for the Meta Quest 2 or PCVR for 9.99$, or on Steam for 9.99$. If you like punching and want a workout it’s more than worth the price.