Top 10 Fallout 4 Features from the Bethesda E3 Presser

06. Combat Improvement

This element of the game was a bit of a surprise, but in a good way!

The first very evident improvement is the Vault-Tec Assisted Targeting System - which is a sort of turn-based targeting and combat system in the games that has returned in Fallout 4.

The player VATS skill, which is influenced by some of the stat points, is powered by Action Points, and VATS is also effected by certain Perks, but it does not have a skill like Energy Weapons, Repair and the like.

In effect what VATS does is allow the player to go into a freeze-mode so that they can target a specific spot on the body of whatever enemy it is they mean to kill or wound, and then shoot or damage that spot.

When it is mastered it allows the player to be far more effective in combat - or it would if it worked smoothly, which it did not exactly do before. Based on the game play demo that we were shown at the presser however VATS has come a long way!

What we mean by that is actually pretty simple... The VATS encounter we saw showed a successful shot with good damage to a body part that was only rated at 40% VATS effectiveness. That is actually a very good outcome because in the previous games that shot? Well, chances are even if it hit the shot would not have resulted in the level of damage we saw tonight.

So yeah, this time around it looks like they have finally refined VATS into a working and effective assisted combat mode.

Now granted you are not always going to want to use VATS, and even when you DO want to use it, you are not always going to have enough Action Points to do so. But to know that it is there and that it works properly? That is good news!

The next element of combat that has been markedly improved is the weapon handling for firearms and energy weapons, which as we saw in the demo were spot on tight and much better than before. What do we mean?

Well in the previous games the aiming system was sometimes funky. Depending on how your character was standing it would often shift the pov and screw up your shots. Not only that, but the actual targeting and sights scheme that was present in the previous games sometimes altered the focus and honestly? Gave us headaches.

In Fallout 4 it appears that all of those annoying little things have been eliminated, and that is good news indeed and certainly worthy of our notice as the Number 6 featured element on our list!