Beat Saber Long-Term Review — Two Years In, Still the King?

Two years. Probably 400 hours. My arms are sore more often than not, my living room has a permanent clear zone in the center, and I still boot Beat Saber at least three times a week.

I think that tells you everything you need to know. But let me tell you more anyway.

Why It’s Still Great

The mechanic is simple. Colored blocks fly at you. You slash them with lightsabers matching the color and direction. Red block with a downward arrow? Slash down with the red saber. It’s intuitive from second one.

What makes it endlessly replayable is the difficulty curve. Easy mode is fun. Normal is engaging. Hard makes you sweat. Expert is where you start feeling like a Jedi. Expert+ is where you look like you’re having a seizure and loving every second of it.

I’m solidly in the Expert range on most songs now. Some Expert+ tracks I can clear, some still destroy me. That’s two years in. The skill ceiling is absurdly high.

The DLC Problem

Beat Saber’s base track list is… fine. Some bangers, some forgettable electronic tracks. The real music — Imagine Dragons, Billie Eilish, The Weeknd, Linkin Park, Lady Gaga — comes in DLC packs at $12-15 each. Buy a few and you’ve doubled the game’s price.

I’ve spent about $80 on DLC. That stings when I think about it as a lump sum. But spread over two years of regular play? That’s cheaper than a gym membership. And I get more exercise from Beat Saber than I ever did at a gym.

The Linkin Park pack is the best one. I’ll die on that hill.

Custom Songs on Quest

This is where it gets complicated. On PC VR, custom songs are easy — huge community, thousands of fan-made charts, one-click installers. On Quest, you need to mod the game through SideQuest or BMBF, and Meta has been increasingly aggressive about breaking mods with updates.

As of early 2026, custom songs on Quest still work but require more tech savvy than they should. You need to stay on specific game versions, avoid certain updates, and jump through hoops. It’s worth the effort — the custom song library is massive — but it’s not for everyone.

If custom songs matter to you and you have a gaming PC, play Beat Saber through PC VR with Link or Virtual Desktop. The modding experience is night and day.

The Fitness Angle

I burn 300-500 calories per hour playing Beat Saber on Expert difficulty. I know this because I’ve tracked it with a chest strap heart rate monitor over dozens of sessions. That’s real exercise. Not “light activity that marketers call a workout.” Real, heart-pumping, sweat-dripping exercise.

The arms and shoulders take the most work. Legs get involved on maps with walls you need to duck. Core engages when you’re twisting to hit blocks on the edges. It’s not a full-body workout but it’s close.

Multiplayer Is Whatever

There’s multiplayer. You can play with friends. It works. It’s also bare-bones — you see other players as floating sabers without bodies, there’s no voice chat, and the competitive scene is entirely third-party through ScoreSaber and BeatLeader.

I play solo. Most people play solo. Multiplayer exists if you want it but it’s clearly not where the development focus goes.

Two Years In

Beat Saber isn’t the newest, most technically impressive, or most innovative VR game anymore. It doesn’t need to be. The core gameplay is so tight, so satisfying, and so replayable that nothing has topped it in years.

Every person I know who owns a Quest plays Beat Saber. Most of them play it regularly. No other VR game has that kind of retention. The thing just works, it feels incredible, and it keeps you coming back.

Is it still the king? Yeah. Damn right it is.