The Vatz is a cancelled science-fiction post-apocalyptic/horror Third-Person action/Role-Playing hybrid game developed around 2001-2002 by Beenox Inc., for the PC and Xbox systems.
The game takes place in the distant future where a war between humanity and vampires is won by the latter, enslaving humans. Living now in cities shrouded by artificial fog, players take on the role of Zakk, a human slave, in the city called The Vatz, who joins the rebellion in order to exterminate all vampires, and reconquer the planet. Zakk has the power to possess certain types of vampires, called receptacles. He can control 3 different ones, each with their own abilities in terms of movements and combos, whether in melee combat or with weapons.
The title was unveiled in April 2002, before E3, and promoted Beenox’ in-house engine Goliath:
Quebec-based game developer Beenox has announced that it will demonstrate The Vatz, its upcoming action strategy game, at the 2002 Electronic Entertainment Expo in Los Angeles next month. The game is set in a sci-fi universe, and it incorporates action, puzzle, strategy, and role-playing elements. Beenox developed a new 3D engine, Goliath, specifically for the game. The engine features an advanced physics system, real-time shadows and lighting, customizable visual effects, and level-of-detail rendering. It also supports animation interpolation, morphing, and blending, as well as a number of video-card-specific features and optimizations such as vertex and pixel shaders.
More could be read on MacWorld:
While the technology demo Beenox will show at E3 next month runs only on Windows, Beenox founder and president Dominique ‘Dee’ Brown explained to MacCentral that the Goliath technology has been created to support multiple platforms.
“The engine could be used to create Macintosh games,” Brown said. “That really depends on whether or not the publisher of the game wants it for the Macintosh market.”
Details are still sketchy on The VATZ, but Beenox describes the game as featuring “intense 3rd-person game play and multiple twisted storylines.” (…)
“In the past several months, we put the best we got in developing a 3D engine that would have everything a gamer may expect and more: Goliath was born,” said Brown.
After that, The Vatz disappeared without any information, and Beenox decided to focus on Windows and Macintosh ports of licensed games for the publisher Activision. It was implied that The Vatz was cancelled due to a lack of publishers interested in the project.
In September 2021, an Xbox prototype dated from October 2002 was leaked by Hidden Palace and can be downloaded here.
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