Die Hard 64

Vendetta separates itself from other first person shooter games with its puzzle like elements. This includes hostage situations which have multiple outcomes, environmental puzzles and NPC interactions. John McClane can communicate to various NPCs in order to gain advice on how to overcome numerous situations in the game.

McClane can also take enemies hostage which cause other enemy AI to react differently depending on the rank of the hostage. Headshots in the game are rewarded by showing a panoramic camera sequence that uses a 'bullet time' effect (similar to an effect in Max Payne where the last dispatched enemy would have an almost-alike panoramic camera).

Five years after the events of Die Hard With a Vengeance, John McClane returns to the LAPD task force after an extended absence. After refreshing his skills in a training exercise, McClane goes home to watch the unveiling of a painting that was recovered from an expedition in South America by Piet Gruber (the son of Hans Gruber, the main villain from the first Die Hard film). As the unveiling begins, Lucy (McClane's daughter, now a police officer) witnesses robbers attempting to leave with artwork, and gunfire erupts, panicking the crowd. McClane rushes to the Townsend Museum to rescue his daughter.

Once there, McClane is notified that the robbers have sealed themselves in and taken hostages, including Lucy. McClane enters the museum and begins his search for the hostages, taking out several criminals in the process. After saving Dick Thornberg and Christopher von Laden (the museum's curator), McClane rescues Lucy.

The game was being developed as an original IP titled Muzzle Velocity featuring a story in which player character Jack, a member of the LAPD SWAT team, is battling an out of control crime wave that the LAPD cannot stop it on its own. After the studio partnered with Fox Interactive, the game shifted to an adaptation of the film Speed 2: Cruise Control. The game would have been primarily set on a boat, though a bus level was also conceived as a nod to the original film. This game was then planned to release in January 1999 for Nintendo 64 and Windows, but due to the movie's critical and commercial failure, both companies decided to switch the project once more to the Die Hard franchise, with the N64 scheduled release being dubbed Die Hard 64.

Gameplay wise, the game was to utilize many of the mechanics found in Goldeneye 007. By early 2000, the Die Hard project was still unfinished, while the next generation of consoles was preparing to release. The studio decided to move the title to GameCube, cancelling the Windows version in the process, and significantly upgrade the game's proprietary TWED engine so they could push the tech into the next gen hardware, developing the game under its current title. On August 30, 2017, a former development team member released playable prototypes of Die Hard 64, up to its latest build.

The GameCube version received "mixed or average" reviews from critics, according to the review aggregator website Metacritic. Fran Mirabella III of IGN said of the same console version: "From the hostage-taking dynamics to the controls, the experience just feels unpolished. It can be fun, but there are a lot of frustrations that come along with it to sour the experience a little".