Why We Brought The Blu to Taiwan

For more than a decade, The Blu has done one thing better than almost any experience we've ever built. It puts you underwater and makes you feel it. The weight of the water. The scale of a creature gliding past. The quiet that comes over a room when someone reaches out to touch a whale that isn't there but absolutely is.

Today we're taking that feeling somewhere new. We're proud to unveil The Blu: Expedition Taiwan, built in collaboration with HTC VIVERSE and the Taiwan Ministry of Culture. It's the first chapter in a global series we've been wanting to make for years.

A new ocean, a new way to share it

This edition takes the franchise into the subtropical seas off Taiwan, one of the planet's most vital biodiversity hotspots and home to the critically endangered Taiwanese white dolphin.

But here's what makes this one different from anything we've done before with The Blu: you don't go alone.

For the first time, friends and families swim side by side in a free-roam space. You explore coral reefs together. You navigate a shipwreck together. You work as a team to free an entangled sea turtle, and then the experience builds toward a search-and-rescue mission to save a white dolphin. The narrative isn't something you watch happen. It's something you do, with the people next to you.

That shift, from solo presence to shared presence, is the whole point. We've always believed XR's superpower is emotional, not technical. When you turn to the person beside you underwater and you both just witnessed the same thing, that memory sticks in a way a screen never could.

Building on a legacy

The Blu launched over ten years ago as one of the most pioneering VR experiences ever made. Since then we've had the privilege of collaborating with Dr. Sylvia Earle, the Scripps Institution of Oceanography, and the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles. The franchise has been recognized as one of the most iconic and award-winning immersive experiences of its kind.

Expedition Taiwan carries that legacy forward with stunning visuals, emotional storytelling, and now genuine shared presence, all in service of something bigger than spectacle: empathy and awareness for ocean conservation and restoration.

As our co-founder and CEO Neville Spiteri, executive producer of The Blu, puts it: this isn't about watching. It's about having a transformative experience with the people you care about, coming face-to-face with Taiwan's majestic marine life in a way that moves you to care.

A partnership that made it possible

None of this happens in isolation. Partnering with HTC let us pair our storytelling craft with their cutting-edge XR technology, and the support of Taiwan's Ministry of Culture rooted the experience in something real: the marine ecology, the local culture, the historical memory of these waters. As the Ministry's Chiang Ching-Sung noted, cultural technology is becoming a real force in Taiwan's content innovation and its connections to the world. We're honored to be part of that.

Directed by Michal Lovecky, Expedition Taiwan is the first in a new global series designed to bring audiences face-to-face with the world's oceans. More expeditions are already in development, and we'll be announcing the next vital marine regions in the coming months.

Come dive with us

The Blu: Expedition Taiwan is now showing at VIVELAND KW7 at Pier-2 Art Center in Kaohsiung, Taiwan.

If you've experienced The Blu before, you know the feeling. This time, bring someone with you.