Police De-escalation

A voice-driven VR simulation training US police officers to de-escalate confrontations through communication.

Working with Google’s Jigsaw unit — a team focused on using technology to address threats to open societies — Nucco designed and developed a VR de-escalation trainer for US police officers. The goal was to reduce the use of force by training officers in scenarios where effective communication can defuse a situation before it becomes dangerous.


Using room-scale locomotion and voice recognition on HTC Vive Pro, trainees interact with performance-captured 3D characters who respond to their voice and attitude in real time. The scenarios — an ordinary traffic stop and a mental health crisis — were developed with specialist advisors, given the extreme sensitivity of the subject matter. The fidelity needed to be high enough for officers to take it seriously: photogrammetry and motion capture delivered gaming-level realism in both characters and environments.


As associate creative director, I helped develop the core creative briefs, created detailed design documents and storyboards, and directed the character and environment modelling team. Every design decision was grounded in consultation with advisors to ensure the scenarios were responsible, realistic and genuinely useful as training tools.