How to Downgrade Game Version

OUTDATED GUIDE

The method explained in this guide no longer works, refer to the comments section below by StepS for a more updated method.

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).

[nCounter]

Thank you for this great guide. Its NOT outdated! As @Trueblue1878 and maybe others said just put the manifest number in Step 7 into square brackets.

The creator of this guide should just correct this and it will work perfectly for everyone

[ritari jansku]

bruh. doesnt work

[Romulus]

Can you just run the old version of the game from the folder that gets downloaded?

[Trueblue1878]

This method still works fine today (25/6/21) but as others have said you need to use the square brackets around the manifest number now. I.E. download_depot 457140 457141 [1190967547710515920]

[Wooden Spirit]

Outdated guide. Steam client no longer allows you to download a Manifest you want, it always downloads the latest Manifest. So, I recommend you to use DepotDownloader.

And actually you can just follow the steps I mentioned in my guide: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2353930763

[trcndc]

Adding the brackets allowed me download the latest version of the game, not a depot.

[twi]

Awesome, I managed to get this to work to downgrade Civ6. I just used Lifell's formatting for the console command.

[goof]

I can't do this, when i open tf2 (i used the update right before jungle inferno)
"Setup file 'gameinfo.txt' doesn't exist in subdirectory 'tf'. Check your -game parameter or VCONFIG Setting."

[Nova]

bisakah untuk mengubah game definitif ke original ?
like "sleeping dog definitive"? ^-^

[DistractionCat]

Not working for among us.