You have ZERO idea what the downsides behind the scenes are between GOG and Bethesda for getting this done.

Chill. It's nothing to worry about, it will be here eventually, and in the meantime, you aren't missing anything.

We would have an idea of what's going on if they didn't go radio silent for three months. I've been waiting on the update so I use the latest unofficial patch to hopefully fix some bugs/crashes I've been having.

I got a question if you don't mind answering. Is it because we're waiting on Bethesda to release a more thoroughly debugged and well tested patch update before GOG accepts it? Are they just trying to be more careful about it in order to create less unhappiness with the overall gaming experience and FO4 community?

The reason I'm asking this is because I think it should be explicitly said what Bethesda's intent is to remove all doubt.

They need to be careful about what they say about behind the scenes stuff between them and Bethesda because they can't risk upsetting Bethesda.

You can read the update list for the unofficial patch, and most of it is just minor discrepancy fixes. The only Crash/Stability related thing is very specific to the NVidia cards opening the Graygarden Workshop.

More general crashes are usually handled by engine related mods like buffout:

https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/47359

Fallout London has much more dense areas, and is more crash prone than the base game, and Buffout really increased stability massively. FOLON was a crashfest in certain areas until adding Buffout, which was a literal game changer. Buffout is now part of the official FOLON install.

If it can help FOLON stability that much it should also help normal FO4, which is what it was designed for.

Gotcha, I really appreciate the confirmation there. It's something I've been inferring based on the long delay when I was lurking around here for updates, but it helps me to know it directly.

With this in mind, I'd rather wait even longer for a quality and less-problematic update.

I can imagine the Fallout 4 codebase being very large and with a lot of built up technical debt that it would be challenging to iron out bugs.

I'm so glad GOG is keeping the pre-Next Gen Update version. For those who really want it, I think it should be an option, but since it fundamentally breaks the game without adding anything truly of value (it does add some Creations, not sure how that will play out in the Creations-free edition GOG offers), I think it's important for GOG's mission to provide maximum compatibility, to offer this version of the game by default.

Again, for people who aren't afraid to get their hands dirty (and for those who don't think bad things can ever happen to them), I think they should be able to use the broken version if they want, provided it can be offered with GOG's current agreement with Bethesda.

As a more casual enjoyer of the game (who wants it for Fallout: London), I am thankful for this version. I'm paying $15.99 (closer to $17 with tax) for my second PC copy just to have easy access to the last working version and for Fallout: London (I bought the game at double full price on PC for the edition with the Pip-Boy phone case, and I paid full price on Xbox as well, where it is currently unplayable due to the update). So while I hope GOG eventually offers the update to those of you who want it, I am happy with what is currently offered.