Die Hard Trilogy

Die Hard is a third-person action/adventure set across thirty floors of the Nakatomi Tower high-rise. Terrorists have interrupted the company Christmas party and taken hostages. As McClane, the player must search for hostages through computer, construction, maintenance, and executive levels. McClane's default pistol features infinite ammo, and the player can collect machine guns and grenades with limited ammo across the levels. Walls become transparent when they intersect the camera, allowing players to easily follow McClane through corridors and rooms. After all hostages on a level are rescued, the player has 30 seconds to locate a bomb sent down by elevator, and uses that elevator to proceed to the next level.

Die Hard 2: Die Harder is a first-person arcade gun game, almost identical to Virtua Cop. Terrorists have attacked Washington/Dulles Airport. The player moves automatically through the airport and surrounding areas "on rails", shooting bad guys who pop out from behind scenery. Weapon upgrade icons can be shot to be collected, and either use limited ammo, or are preserved until the player gets hit (identical to Lethal Enforcers). Players can also destroy parts of the environment by shooting them, which can be used to take out nearby terrorists (with explosions or by shooting objects overhead to drop on them). This game supports pad controls or any of the PlayStation gun controllers.

Die Hard With A Vengeance has players race through the streets of New York City in various vehicles to locate bombs before they detonate. A strict timer ticks down to the next explosion, and the player is guided only by a directional arrow and their copilot's vocal suggestions. Bombs are hidden in everyday objects (such as phone booths and banks) and are defused by ramming them, which triggers the timer on the next bomb. Incidental "bomb cars" must be chased and rammed until their health bar is depleted. Power-ups can be collected by running over icons in the streets and include extra time, turbo boosts, and jumps to clear obstacles.

All three games are excessively bloody (players can run over pedestrians in Die Hard 3 and wipe the blood off with windshield wipers). Each of the three games also uses a combination of textured polygons and sprites to generate their worlds, which results in texture warping and some idiosyncratic "paper doll" effects.