How to Downgrade Game Version

OUTDATED GUIDE

The method and images explained in this guide might no longer work & outdated, please refer to the comments section below for updated steps. Thank you everyone who shared their working methods.

1. Enable Steam Console

Right click on your Steam desktop shortcut, click properties and add -console after Steam target address.



If done correctly, you should see 'Console' tab after your Steam username on the client.



Alternatively, you can also access Steam console by pressing Win + R or open web browser and then type the command:

steam://open/console

2. Go to steamdb.info and search your game

Open your internet browser and go to https://steamdb.info then type in your game name at search bar on top right.

3. Get Game/App ID Number

After typed in the game's title, you will see list of results. Click the one that match your game. Usually it was categorized as 'game' not 'DLC' or 'video'. For this guide, I used HITMAN 2016 as example, AppID 236870.

PLEASE PAY ATTENTION TO APPID NUMBER. It will be very useful on later steps. Thank you.

4. Check game's ACF file

After finding the game's appID on Steam database, now you need to go to this location in your computer

 (Steam install path)/Steam/steamapps 

or in case you install game outside Steam directory, the files will be at

 (drive letter)/SteamLibrary/steamapps

In this folder you will find a bunch of appmanifest [appID number] files. Now pick the one with your game appID, and open it with any text editor like Notepad.

Inside the files, you will see something like the image below.
The "number" inside brackets are the Depot you need to download from. While the number after "manifest" tells you which Manifest currently installed on your hard drive.

5. Get Depot ID number

After checking game's manifest files on Steam folder, now time to go back to SteamDB website and find the correct Depots number.

Click on the Depot number you want to download.


Each Depots contain package of game files called 'Manifest'. Now the next thing you need to do is to download the correct Manifest you need to downgrade or rollback the game.

6. Get manifest ID number

Click the manifests to see all the game versions with timestamp. Pick the one you want to download. For example, because I wanted to rollback my HITMAN back to version released in March 14, 2017, so I look up for that. PLEASE PAY ATTENTION TO MANIFESTID NUMBER ON THE RIGHT COLUMN. Better yet, copy it to your clipboard.

7. Download the package

Now that you have AppID, DepotID and ManifestID, go back to Steam console and type down

 download_depot <gameID> <depotID> <manifestID> 

Example: because I wanna downgrade HITMAN to the version released in March 14, 2017. I would type this on the console:

 download_depot 236870 236871 8264336280323447139

See the numbers there 236870 is AppID, 236871 is DepotID and 8264336280323447139 is ManifestID.

8. Mischief managed :^)

If successful, go check your Steam download section to make sure your network is downloading the package. The game name won't be visible, but as long as your network show any activity on the data usage, it's working.



If you successfully downloaded the package, it will be on your [path to Steam folder]/Steam/steamapps/content folder. All you need to do now is replacing the game files with your downloaded package.

DONE. Congratulations, you've committed a black magic and successfully alter the existence of time itself.

9. Prevent Steam from Updating Your Game

After successfully replaced game files with older ones, you might want to prevent Steam from auto updating your game.

1. The 1st solution is to open the same ACF files as in step 4, then check the "State Flag" line below the game title. Change whatever the number currently in there to "4" this means "updated and installed".


DO NOTE: Never edit the ACF file while Steam client running. Exit Steam first, otherwise Steam will revert your change to default.

For in-depth method about skipping updates I suggest checking THIS HELPFUL GUIDE.

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2. The 2nd solution is to boot Steam straight into offline mode without going online first.

Go to "Config" folder in your Steam folder

 (Drive letter)/Steam/config 

Then open "loginusers.vdf" with notepad or any text editor. Change "WantsOfflineMode" and "SkipOfflineModeWarning" to "1". See the red circles below. You might better change "RememberPassword" with "1" as well.


Then save the file & close text editor. Then right click the file and set it as Read-only.
You might need to restart Steam client once after that.

If you do these steps correctly, the next time you launch Steam you go straight into offline mode and this window will pop at beginning.


Choose Start in Offline Mode, Steam should give you no further warning or asking password again. And they will surely not update your game.

Note for offline mode: You can do this indefinitely, only exception is Denuvo games, they limit you with 2 weeks offline period (after offline for 2 weeks you can't play Denuvo games without going online first).

[magma34333]

It only downloaded a few files in my depot folder and I don't know how I can run the team fortress 2013 client in german I need some help.

[Iron Mal]

How do I change the download location of the depot? My C Drive is very small and thus i cant download the depot to it, is there a way i can do all the same steps but direct the download to a bigger drive??

[Li'kara]

Is there a way to download only a single file from an older game version? There's an Elden Ring mod I want, tht's just a modded regulation.bin, but the last version of it only supports version 1.05. DSMapStudio can auto-update the mod to the latest version of the game, but I need a clean, unmodded 1.05 regulation.bin for the update process.

[jrad44]

I'm getting my steam deck this friday and have already bought F122 which seems to crash for everyone since it release the 1.09 update. The game is now at 1.10 and still crashes and would need 1.08 for the game to work again.

Would I still be able to do this even though I never had 1.08 installed on my deck?

[Steady]

Thanks a lot!!!
But i think this is counteroffensive white magic because we are using it now on 2022 to defends ourselves from the evil patch/update provided by, most of the times, greedy companies trying to make "Quality of life" updates that only benefit the company, not the players, to introduce spyware on our system. Just like 2K updates on 10 year old games (and older) to include a new DRM system and a new launcher (independent from steam) with their store. Anyway thanks because this will be very useful if all companies start having the same ideas as 2K.

[Stone IV]

NAISU

[GaBoZ]

im trying this on xv2 and it says "Depot download failed : missing license for depots 454654"

[loganberry31]

trying to do this with fnaf:sb but it will not download the package despite me having all the right numbers in the command

[Darkrider64]

I am trying to do this with FIFA 22 I get to download it and it only download app

[disaster3031]

i am trying to do this on RDR2 and i'm using option to go on steam offline and after launching a game it says that i need verification can someone tell me what can i do?