Taiwan's XR Black Wave: Future of Immersive Creation

In 2024, the Taiwan Ministry of Culture’s "Black Wave Cultural Plan" is rolling out a massive 10 billion NTD (~ 330M USD) plan over four years to support six major cultural and artistic areas: arts, publishing, cultural creativity, film and music, cultural technology, and cultural diplomacy. For the first time, the plan includes subsidies for "XR Immersive Visual Creation," divided into three categories. The "Concept Development" category encourages the development of promising project concepts with grants ranging from 1 to 3 million NTD(~ 33K to 100K USD). The "Production and Filming" category supports the creation of developed XR immersive content, offering grants between 1.2 to 5 million NTD(~ 40K to 160K USD).. Additionally, in response to international trends, a "Multi-User Interactive" category has been established to encourage the development and production of XR works aimed at multi-user interaction, market distribution, and technological innovation, with grants up to 10 million NTD(~330K USD).

A total of 38 projects received funding this time, allowing teams new to immersive creation to take their first steps and providing more resources for those looking to deepen their involvement. For instance, the Mr. Wing Theatre Company is working on an adaptation of Jimmy Liao's picture book "Sound of Colors," while the Very Theater is upgrading its international version of "Free UR Head." The Black Wave subsidies not only continue to support long-developed 360 VR and single-user VR narrative works but also invest in areas that "everyone wants to do but can't due to cost and technical barriers"—projects that fit the "multi-user interaction, location-based, walk-through experience" category, such as LBE (Location-Based Experience) type of works.

Black Wave Cultural XR project "Sounds of Color XR".

This approach feels like a bold bet on integrating local technology and storytelling: Can Taiwan create its own "Eternal Notre-Dame"? How can technology and storytelling be combined to produce works that stand out? Huang Haojie, director of the Kaohsiung Film Archive, who is leading the initiative believes that, "When we see profitable cases abroad, we wonder if Taiwan can produce works that can achieve both IP and profitability, and even establish viable business models."

He highlights not just market pressure but also a shift in creative logic—from theater to VR, from images to interactive narratives, and now into a new chapter of LBE. But are we really starting from scratch? Or do we already have a good foundation and enough momenum, but we’re just missing a way to sustain progress?

The Deeper Issue: Gaps in Technology and Talent

Kaohsiung Film Archive's VR support program has been running for nearly a decade, sending many creators to international film festivals each year. While it has nurtured creators with fresh ideas, the challenge lies not in creativity but in execution, production experience, and technical integration. Experienced production teams play a crucial role in the practical process.

"These teams aren't just experimenting; they're carrying know-how across different projects, accumulating expertise in technical efficiency and process optimization. This speeds up development, reduces budget costs, and is vital for the industry," says Huang Juheng, Black Wave's advisory consultant and review committee member.

Huang Haojie (Director of the Koahsiung Film Archive) further notes that early VR creations often focused on 360-degree image stitching and single-point narratives, extending the logic of flat images. However, with the development of immersive media, today's works have entered multi-user interaction and walk-through narratives, involving synchronization and positioning systems, spatial modeling, and network streaming capabilities. This shift raises the production bar, with few teams able to handle everything from start to finish. LBE works, in particular, require stable hardware configurations and technical integration, as well as design challenges related to venue conditions, audience flow, and real-time interaction.

For Taiwan, this gap is a core issue hindering the stable expansion of the XR industry. "Creators often face the dilemma of 'I want to do it, but I don't know who can help execute,'" he says. "That's why we need potential vendors with practical experience." Observing the execution of the Black Wave subsidies, it's clear that a few production teams are handling multiple projects, not only tackling high-tech multi-user interaction types but also spanning various styles and forms of XR immersive content production. This phenomenon highlights the current XR industry's over-concentration of energy and severe shortage of overall production manpower.

On the Production Front: How studios like the Moonshine Studio are Driving the Black Wave Plan

To get a closer understanding of the practical realities, we interviewed production teams in Taiwan that handles multiple projects to gain insights into the challenges and bottlenecks faced by the current XR industry at the production level.

"Moonshine Studio" is working on two multi-user walk-through VR projects, " Scrolls of A Northern City - Through KIKUMOTO" and "Return to Zeelandia," as well as the interactive VR work " Sosowon: The Season of the Flying Fish." Despite their rich experience in interactive and immersive content production, they still encounter many technical challenges when it comes to execution.

Wenqi Wu, Head of Interactive Department of Moonshine Studio, that the most challenging aspect is the connection stability and computational performance limitations of VR all-in-one devices. While all-in-one devices reduce the cost burden of hardware deployment, compromises must be made in terms of image detail and narrative strategy. For instance, when directors want to recreate specific scenes or effects, they must consider how to execute them smoothly within technical constraints—a tug-of-war between "imagination" and "reality."

Black Wave subsidized XR project "Return to Zeelandia".

How can we Take XR Creations Further?

Another common industry challenge is: Where will the works be seen? Who will operate them? And how can they become content that audiences are willing to pay for and experience repeatedly?

As Huang Haojie says, "Without cinemas, the film industry wouldn't exist." The XR industry is no different. Current immersive experiences mostly rely on art festivals, limited exhibitions, or short-term tours, lacking stable venues for "habitual exposure" to audiences. This not only prevents the market from forming but also often limits the lifespan of works to the day the subsidy ends.

As immersive works have developed, creators no longer see XR as a technical showcase but as a genuine medium for storytelling. Production teams are beginning to establish collaborative rapport with directors from different fields, forming a common language—from an optimistic perspective, the creative side is already quietly evolving.

More importantly: Instead of one-time subsidies or a single large-scale result evaluation, we might need a system and venues that allow for continuous trial and error, gradual iteration, and establish systems and spaces for immersive works to continue to take shape and grow.

But this is just the beginning. The power of the Black Wave lies not in a one-time surge but in its long-term focus, interacting with the terrain and releasing energy according to environmental conditions. What truly nurtures life is not the current itself but whether the shoreline can respond, adjust, and accommodate.

Subsidies are the same—if we expect XR works to have cultural depth and commercial potential, the support mechanism cannot just be about throwing money, accompanying, and evaluating. It should be resilient and fluid like the ocean current, adjusting its pace and direction according to genres, contexts, stages, and venue conditions, gradually building the intertidal zone of the XR industry.