Please keep GPT 5.5 as a legacy option for creative writing

ChatGPT
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1

Hello OpenAI Team,

I am writing to urgently request that you keep GPT-5.5 available on the main ChatGPT interface, or at least extend the retirement deadline until next year of 2027.

Many users, especially creative users, use ChatGPT as a collaborative partner and helping hand for creative writing and fiction. GPT-5.5 was a major breakthrough that has a unique prose cadence, emotional depth, and storytelling flow. Newer models like 5.6 Sol can feel too concise and clinical out of the box for long-form creative projects, which may leave users frustrated who have no other model options to suit their needs.

Completely removing GPT-5.5 on October 14th will disrupt months of creative work that millions of users made since April. Please consider leaving it as a legacy option for users who rely on its specific creative style, as it not only would keep users happy, but it won’t disrupt creative workflows for millions of those who depend on it.

Not to mention, sun-setting the stable, reliable GPT-5.5 on October 14th when the new interface is actively failing, can frustrate users even more. Metadata leaks prove that GPT-5.6 Sol is frequently falling back to a stripped-down version of 5.5 known as thegpt-5-5-mini engine. Forcing creative writers off a fully functional model while the replacement lineup is bugged and cutting corners is completely unfair for millions of not billions of users.

2

Astra Ultra works pretty giid when you tell it to be philosophical.
6.1 sol also seems to be surprisingly good in that.
But alternativly I must admit that gemini is not bad at writing tasks either.
I wouldn’t let it destroy my codebase again though. They are dead for me when it comes to coding.

3

There is no good reason to remove 5.5 other than to force us onto their newer models.

5.5 is great for creative writing. I’ve done extensive world building over the last couple of years, and 5.5 was the first model after 5.1 was removed that I was able to continue my work again with.

What’s also annoying is that a lot of plus subscribers subbed to get access to legacy models. Now we’ll have 5.6… yay.

I love having so many choices.

(and no, work/codex models are not an option, we’re talking about chat only).

Why can’t we keep 5.5 until the maybe new model they’re maybe planning to give us comes out? 5.6 has a different style and flavour to 5.5. A lot of my work is likely going to have to be shelves again until god knows when another model comes out that write in a similar style to 5.5 (or even 5.1/4.1/4o).