I'd recommend the Steam version. But don't bother with AE; Special Edition has better mod support.
So I should get SE? Isn't AE and SE the same game but AE had more content?
Yup, just get SE. Mods need to be updated to work with the Anniversary Edition, and a lot of authors haven't done that yet. You'll need to downgrade SE, but there's an easy tool to do just that.
If you wanted to buy Special Edition for Steam, GMG (key seller with great reputation) has it on sale for roughly US$9.
You can still use the "Best of Both Worlds" if you really want to have the free CC stuff from AE but it's not super worth it imo
You may see some people refer to the baseline Skyrim as the AE as when the AE released the SE got baseline upgrades and some creation club content is included by default (fishing, survival mode, Saints and Seducers, and Rare curios) so it has been changed since the SE release.
The paid AE DLC only adds the rest of the creation club content. There are some interesting things in it, but nothing mandatory. You can pick and choose what you want though, so you're not forced to run the entire pack. Just think of it as a bundle of paid mods that you'll have to check compatibility to your other mods.
The Steam summer sale starts June 29th, so you shouldn't have to wait long for that discount.
I completely forgot about the summer sale. Ok then I'll wait a little. Thanks for the heads up!
It's been a while since I messed with it, but I'll try and give you my recollections that might be outdated.
First, GoG version, at the time at least, did not ship with the creation kit. So that sucks.
The big problem I think was the address library. Major version changes change the layout of the game's memory, which means something that directly addresses game data has to update constantly. When I was playing it about a year ago, that mod had not been updated. A bunch of more sophisticated stuff depends on that library, so it breaks a lot of dependencies.
SKSE itself works, and more basic SKSE mods like SkyUI work fine.
So I mean, the GoG version is playable. Personally I despise how much Steam has normalized intrusive DRM and basically refuse to use it. If you don't care, then you will probably have a better time with the Steam version.
You can always crack the steam version yourself as well.
I can't speak to the GOG version but it frequently goes on sale on Steam (75% off of so), so you wouldn't have to wait long.
It usually receives the same sales on GOG as well: https://isthereanydeal.com/game/elderscrollsvskyrimspecialedition/info/
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