Coltrane Brings Interactive VR Noir Back to the Scene
New Canvas, Jacaranda Productions, and PICO announce Coltrane, a five-episode interactive VR noir series launching in Q4.
Ten years after the early mobile VR experiment VR Noir: A Day Before the Night pulled in over 500,000 downloads on Samsung Gear VR and Google Cardboard, the creators are back. Australian production houses New Canvas and Jacaranda Productions, alongside PICO, just announced Coltrane, a five-episode interactive VR noir series launching in Q4. If you care about narrative immersion and what the medium looks like beyond throwaway tech demos, this is one to watch. Platform support includes PICO devices, and the series will ship in both English and Mandarin.
Set in Hong Kong, the story follows private investigator Veronica Coltrane-played by AACTA Award winner Diana Glenn-as she digs into memory, perception, and truth. Under the hood, the production leans on modern tech, including interactive characters rendered using real-time animated Gaussian splats.
Looking back, 2016 felt like the wild west for cinematic VR, relying on primitive mobile gear and 360-degree video tricks. Revisiting this format a decade later on standalone headsets with actual real-time spatial tech shows how far the ecosystem has crawled. Whether this can finally push interactive narrative beyond the dreaded “VR experience” tag remains to be seen, but the DNA is solid.
