Anyone that has ever tried modding Fallout 4 has no doubt encountered the Fallout 4 Script Extender (F4SE). This is a valuable resource for players and unfortunately the recent update to the game has broken it. The good news is that the developers for it are aware of the issues and are working hard on a fix. They have, rather understandably, requested that players do not email them with questions.

On April 25, 2024, Bethesda released its Fallout 4 Next Gen Update, which sought to improve the game for new and old players alike. Unfortunately, as anyone that’s used a mod will know, an update to a game can dramatically break a mod, which is exactly what has happened with the F4SE.

The developers of the mod, Ian Patterson, Stephen Abel, and Brendan Borthwick, took to their F4SE site to let players know that they are currently working on a fix.

The 2024-04-25 Fallout 4 update (1.10.980 and later) has broken F4SE and the rest of the native code modding scene similarly to Skyrim's "Anniversary Edition" patch. I am working on an update and cannot currently offer a timeline for its availability, nor whether there will be any critical technical issues that would block an update. Do not email with questions.

Patterson then took to the Nexus Mods site to give players more of an update about the state of the script extender.

Thank you for all of the support! I assume people would rather have me working on the update than making individual responses, but in general thanks for the nice words and support.

2024-04-27: The first step of the update process is done, doing a first pass at updating all of the addresses for the new version of the game. Another long step begins now, validating the addresses and seeing if there were any structure layout changes. This would not benefit from external testing.

2024-04-28: Building regression tests for games on this engine is painful. To progress on something else that needs work before release, I'm porting over the plugin manager changes and loader changes from SKSE64 and SFSE. This modernizes plugin version detection, and minimizes the virus scanner false positive issues by using a single loader executable that doesn't need to change with each version.

There’s currently no timeline on when the Fallout 4 Script Extender will be fixed, which makes sense given these developers presumably have full-time jobs that keep them busy. For any player that heavily mods their game, it can certainly be frustrating when a developer releases an update that breaks mods. It’s almost like biting the hand that feeds you. While these games are good in their own rights, the modding community is why these games stand the test of time. Long-time fans work hard to continue to create content for players, ensuring that a game that is almost a decade old remains fresh.

The creators of the massive, upcoming mod, Fallout: London have expressed dissatisfaction with the timing of the latest Fallout 4 update. The team had been set to release the DLC-sized mod on April 23, but the release of the Next Gen Update threw a wrench in the works due to it breaking the Fallout 4 Script Extender.

So it’s not just the player downloading and using mods that have been affected, the big players in the modding scene that have been creating the content are running into issues as well. We’ll be sure to keep you updated on how the fixes for the Fallout 4 Script Extender are coming along. For more on this great series, take a look at our Fallout page.