How to Revert the Next-Gen update

Do you have a bunch of mods that are no longer compatible with your playthrough?
Did you also make the mistake of forgetting to disable updates? /s
Are you contemplating stopping your playthrough until mod authors and the F4SE team support the big update?

This guide might be for you!
I'll walk through disabling the updates from reverting all of our changes in the future, downloading the previous update files, and finally copying them to your installation directory.

Warning & Prefix

I want to give a HUGE thanks to Drizzt for helping me organize and keep instructions clear for this guide!

Also, thank you everyone else for your helpful feedback and sharing your issues.

Warning: If you use Creative Club Addons, there's a good chance those mods have been updated to work with the newest update and won't work anymore after following this guide. Because these creative club Addons aren't downloaded from Steam's servers, there's no way that I know of to download older versions of them.

This guide assumes you have the Fallout 4: Game of the Year edition that includes all DLCs. If you don't have all DLCs then no worries, just grab only the base game depots and the one that matches your language of preference (four in total). If for example you only have the Nuka World DLC, then as of today's update v1.10.980.0.0 there have been no changes to that DLC. Because there have been no changes you do not have to download anything outside of the base game depots. The Nuka World files have not been changed at all.

"My game is on the latest version and my mods are now broke, what do I do!?"

No worries, this guide will have you back to the old version in no time.

Downloading Previous Updates (Depots)

1. Press Windows Key + R to open the Run dialog

2. Type 'steam://open/console'

3. Click OK

4. Run the following commands highlighted in blue in the following screenshot (and in bold below):

377161 - Fallout 4 content_a
download_depot 377160 377161 7497069378349273908

377162 - Fallout 4 exe
download_depot 377160 377162 5847529232406005096

377163 - Fallout 4 content_b
download_depot 377160 377163 5819088023757897745

435870 - Fallout 4 - Automatron (435870) Depot
download_depot 377160 435870 1691678129192680960

435880 - Fallout 4 - Wasteland Workshop (435880) Depot
download_depot 377160 435880 1255562923187931216

The reason we're doing these specific 'depots' is because they are the only ones (aside from non-English depots) that have changed since before the Next-Gen update. You can find out which depots have been modified in each update by going to
https://steamdb.info/app/377160/patchnotes/

Once you're on this page, click on an update you want to see changes for

Now when we scroll to the bottom past the notes, we can see each modified depot

Localization Depots

Only download the languages you need. If you only want English, then only download the English depots from the commands below. You do not need to download them all!

Another reminder that if you don't have the Automatron DLC, you don't need to download the Automatron depot!

If you get an error when running one of these commands, then it likely means you DO NOT have the DLC and can move on to the next part.

English

377164 - Fallout 4 english
download_depot 377160 377164 2178106366609958945

435871 - Fallout 4 - Automatron english
download_depot 377160 435871 5106118861901111234

Spanish

377168 - Fallout 4 spanish
download_depot 377160 377168 7717372852115364102

435875 - Fallout 4 - Automatron spanish
download_depot 377160 435875 2953236065717816833

French

377165 - Fallout 4 french
download_depot 377160 377165 7549549550652702123

435872 - Fallout 4 - Automatron french
download_depot 377160 435872 5590419866095647350

German

377166 - Fallout 4 german
download_depot 377160 377166 6854162778963425477

435873 - Fallout 4 - Automatron german
download_depot 377160 435873 2207548206398235202

Italian

377167 - Fallout 4 italian
download_depot 377160 377167 783101348965844295

435874 - Fallout 4 - Automatron italian
download_depot 377160 435874 9032251103390457158

Japanese

393884 - Fallout 4 japanese
download_depot 377160 393884 3455288010746962666

404091 - Fallout 4 - Automatron japanese
download_depot 377160 404091 6756984187996423348

Portuguese

393882 - Fallout 4 portuguese-br
download_depot 377160 393882 7540680803954664080

435878 - Fallout 4 - Automatron portuguese-br
download_depot 377160 435878 8276750634369029613

Russian

393881 - Fallout 4 russian
download_depot 377160 393881 4735225695214536532

435877 - Fallout 4 - Automatron russian
download_depot 377160 435877 2675794883952625475

Disabling Updates & Finding Install Directory

5. Find your Fallout 4 installation on Steam in your library

6. Right click and go to properties

7. In the "Updates" tab switch Automatic Updates to "Only update this game when I launch it"

8. In the "Installed Files" tab click on the 'Browse...' button outlined in red:

9. Go back two folders from this root Fallout 4 directory

Example:
From
E:\SteamLibrary\steamapps\common\Fallout 4
To
E:\SteamLibrary\steamapps

10. Find the 'appmanifest_377160.acf' file in this directory

11. Right click > Properties on this file, check the Read-only attribute, and click the Apply button

Copying Previous Updates to Game Directory

12. Navigate to the location where the depots were downloaded in step 4.

This is usually located in C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\steamapps\content\app_377160\

13. Go into each folder recursively and move all of the contents to the Fallout 4 main directory:

---

URGENT: When copying the content over, make sure you copy depot_377163 LAST! Both 377161 and 377163 contain a Data/Fallout4 - Meshes.ba2. Use the one from 377163 or you may find missing textures!

---

If you're prompted while copying the files over, select the option 'Replace the file in the destination'





This step might take a while depending on the speed of your drives. I keep my Fallout 4 installation on a HDD but I am copying from an SSD so the HDD is a bottleneck.

14. Delete the files that were added in the latest update

If you go to the changelog[steamdb.info], you can see highlighted in green which files were added as part of the update.

We need to delete those to keep from crashing. Go to your Fallout 4/Data directory and delete all files that start with cc, and also delete Fallout4IDs.ccc in the root Fallout 4 directory.

Finished!

15. Finally, Launch the game! You should now be back to v1.10.163.0.1 (The previous update from December 4th, 2019

If your game is crashing shortly after opening the game, and you have this message at the top right of your screen it means that the creative club addons might be causing conflicts. This could mean they have been updated but aren't compatible with the older versions.



To fix this, you should go in your Fallout 4/Data folder and delete all files that start with 'cc' (stands for Creative Club)



Once you do that try relaunching the game again and hope there are no crashes!

If you forgot to set your appmanifest_377160.acf to read-only (steps 5-11) then steam will update the depots outlined in https://steamdb.info/app/377160/patchnotes/ and then check the integrity of your game. Once it does this integrity check it will re-download the whole game so you will have to follow this guide from start to finish again.

Let me know if this guide helps (or doesn't) :)
Good luck and stay safe, Wastelanders!

[Steffen/Braden]

I'm at the same crossroads as Copper Kast.
Made sure to do everything by the letter and validated everything.

I press start, the launcher comes up, then I hit play again.
It starts running the game for a few seconds, then goes away; Fallout 4 never comes up.
I even tried Vortex, but it doesn't work.

[ROXASBrandon]

@Cooper did you follow the guide after a fresh install and verified your game was working?

[Copper Kast]

it also doesn't matter if I try launching it through vanilla means or through script extender via vortex. same thing happens

[Copper Kast]

so erm... i followed the guide, did all the steps and whatnot, now when i try and launch i get as far as the launcher page and press play and nothing happens, watching on steam the games state says running for about 30 seconds then just stops before anything can load.

[TylerDurden12]

So question, how do I revert the revert? Once F4se comes back how do I actually get the updates to go through? Do I just press update on Steam?

[Coozer]

I have done it all multiple times and it crashed often in the game. Normally like crossing the bridge to enter vault 111. Not sure best place to ask for help.

Should I just wait to updates? I really wanna play with mods like sim settlements 2 :(

[repose]

ok, thanks for the guide!

[ROXASBrandon]

@repose - Yes. If you're using F4SE you'll need to install Buffout 4 or another achievement enabler though. The game will warn you when you load a save if you don't get achievements.

[repose]

Do you get achievements using this method?

[Secret]

my game still crashing right after start... i checkt all steps dobble...