https://www.polygon.com/2018/10/8/17943400/fallout-76-beta-vats-multiplayer-hands-on-preview-ps4-xbox-one-pc

My history with Fallout begins with Bethesda Game Studios taking custody of the role-playing franchise a decade ago. So I’ve only known combat under VATS, the series’ time-slowing/stopping approach to an RPG-style battle. Whether I was alert, sleep-deprived, panicked or just plain drunk, the Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System was indispensable in helping me get the drop on someone, or countering when someone had gotten the drop on me. And VATS, which actually allowed for some decision-making in first-person combat, sure as hell beat getting shot to pieces by teenagers in Call of Duty: World at War or Resistance 2. More than anything else in the game, VATS helped hook me on Fallout 3.

So this signature feature’s treatment in Fallout 76, Bethesda’s first multiplayer title for the franchise, would be the bulk of my first impression in a hands-on session with the game last week. It’s one thing to be told that VATS is present in Fallout 76 — to see the percentage chance to hit. But it does not stop or slow combat with other humans the way it does in the previous, single-player entries. You really need to use it to understand what it provides. For me, VATS in this game was more of a comforting familiarity than a combat aid, especially at lower levels.