Ten years after VR Noir: A Day Before the Night put viewers inside a private investigator’s head on Gear VR and Cardboard, its creators are BRINGING Veronica Coltrane back. New Canvas, Jacaranda Productions and PICO on October 7 announced COLTRANE, a FIVE-episode immersive noir series starring and produced by AACTA Award winner Diana Glenn, per the joint announcement. The companies say it launches in Q4 2026 in ENGLISH and MANDARIN. What they have NOT said is which HEADSET it runs on.
What Was Announced
The series runs FIVE episodes of roughly 15 MINUTES each. Glenn PLAYS Veronica Coltrane, a DISGRACED former SFPD detective working as a private investigator in Hong Kong, whose surveillance job pulls her into a conspiracy “where memory, perception and truth can’t always be trusted.” The announcement says the production COMBINES live-action performance with real-time immersive environments, so that Glenn’s performance and the world of the show “inhabit the viewer’s physical space.”
“Veronica can’t always trust what she remembers, what she sees or even her own instincts and neither can the audience,” Glenn said in the release. New Canvas co-founder Nathan Anderson, who PRODUCED the 2016 original and is COLTRANE’s showrunner, called the project “both a continuation of where we started and a glimpse of where immersive storytelling can go next.”
The Technical Pitch: Splats, 180° Video and Unity
The most CONCRETE production detail comes from an IF Magazine interview with the team, also published October 7. Components were shot in BOTH regular 2D live action and stereoscopic 180°. Matt Hermans of Sydney-based Electric Lens Co ran PICO’s capture and performance pipelines, which included interactive characters rendered as real-time animated Gaussian splats, captured with 16 CAMERAS recording a performance at once to build 3D models.
Principal photography took place MAINLY in Melbourne, using the Victorian College of the Arts’ LED Volume Studio, with an additional shoot in Hong Kong. New Canvas’s project page lists the technology as “Volumetric / Live Action / Realtime Game Engine (Unity).” IF reports the series is currently in POST-PRODUCTION and quality assurance.
Choices, but One Ending
IF describes COLTRANE as a branching narrative and a cinema-game hybrid, but Anderson set a CLEAR LIMIT on that branching: the central mystery “ultimately resolves the same way,” while audience CHOICES shape Coltrane’s personal journey and relationships. Viewers alternate between OBSERVING her and ACTING as her. “That ability to take immersive from not just, ‘I feel like I’m here’ to ‘I feel like I have some sort of control over the character’s journey’ is something that we want to explore more,” Anderson told the outlet.
PICO Commissioned It, but Hardware Is ‘To Be Announced’
New Canvas’s project page says the series is “commissioned by PICO Technology,” and the studio’s homepage says it is coming “in partnership with Jacaranda Productions and Pico TV.” The SAME project page still lists Hardware: To be Announced. UploadVR’s report likewise says COLTRANE is coming to “unspecified VR platforms.” So PICO’s involvement is CONFIRMED, but whether the series is EXCLUSIVE to PICO headsets, or also reaches Quest, Steam or Apple Vision Pro, is NOT.
The release window also needs CAREFUL reading. The announcement and the project page both say Q4 2026, and the release says the series launches “later this year.” IF, however, REPORTS that COLTRANE “is expected to roll out in Australia in Q1 next year,” which means the production companies’ home market may WAIT until 2027. Additional cast, first-look imagery and a trailer are due “soon,” according to IF. NO price has been given.
How It Was Paid For
The FUNDING model may matter more to the IMMERSIVE industry than the plot. IF reports COLTRANE was financed through INTERNATIONAL investment via PICO, which IF describes as ByteDance-owned, plus PRIVATE financing from Truant Pictures, Screen NSW’s Digital Games Rebate, VicScreen’s Victorian Screen Incentive and development support from Screen Australia. It also QUALIFIED for Australia’s federal Digital Games Tax Offset. Anderson told IF this patchwork, closer to a feature film, is UNUSUAL in XR, where a technology partner typically PAYS for a full commission, and said he hopes it becomes a MODEL for studios like his.
The 2016 Baseline
The original VR Noir was developed by Start VR and RELEASED in 2016 as part of Vivid Sydney’s official program. According to the announcement, it PASSED 500,000 downloads on Samsung Gear VR and Google Cardboard and earned a Most Innovative VR nomination at the 2016 Proto Awards. In 2020 Anderson spun Start Beyond’s entertainment division into New Canvas, TAKING the VR Noir property with it.
Both platforms that carried that download count are GONE, which is why the HARDWARE question is the one to WATCH. The series is credited to directors Sarah Goodes and Damian Walshe-Howling and lead writer Jenevieve Chang, and executive produced by Goodes and Glenn for Jacaranda, Hermans for Electric Lens Co, Zareh and Toby Nalbandian for Truant Pictures, and Anderson and Wadooah Wali for New Canvas. Until PICO or New Canvas NAMES a storefront, COLTRANE is a DATED, FUNDED and largely SHOT production WITHOUT a confirmed device.
Sources: New Canvas, Jacaranda and PICO announcement via XR Must; IF Magazine; New Canvas COLTRANE project page; UploadVR; Variety, July 2025.