How to downgrade Resident Evil 2 (2019) using Steam

This guide is mostly intended for those who enjoy playing RE2 with Benn Powell's randomizer[benn-gaming.co.uk]. Recent game updates almost completely ruined this experience due to often crashes.

Here we show how to downgrade the game to the version as of 17 December 2021, the latest one before infamous ray-tracing update. It works well with the randomizer version 0.6.6BETA.

No 3rd party utilities is needed, only Steam and a purchased game.

Introduction and Preparation

In order to perform the downgrade, we will use a steam console - a built-in tool designed for game developers which is normally not visible for users. This console is very powerful and allows one to download publicly available updates, patches and other data related to the game.

Before downloading anything, it is useful to do some preparations:

1. Disable auto-updates for RE2:
   Resident Evil 2 -> Properties -> Updates -> Only update this game when I launch it
   
   
2. Navigate to the game directory:
   Resident Evil 2 -> Properties -> Installed Files -> Browse...
   
   
3. (Optional) Backup game files.
   
   I'd recommend this if you have a lot of mods installed or have slow internet connection. With backup, you won't need to re-download files or re-install all the mods if you ever decide to return to the latest version of the game.
   
   
4. Delete all game files except file "883710" (this file is not a big deal though)

Downgrade

1. Open Steam console:
   Press Win + R, enter "steam://open/console" and click "Ok". This will open Steam console which should look like this (red arrows show the input line):
   
   
2. Enter this command in order to download first portion of files (about 22Gb):
   
   download_depot 883710 883711 6039528136617988522
   
   Do not worry if you do not see any indication of the progress or see unrelated messages/errors, this is just how steam console works. It most likely started the download, you can try to check network/disk activity in the task manager to verify this.
   
   Note: the download directory is not the game directory, see below.
   
   
3. Once the download is finished, you will see a message like this:
   
   Open the directory from the message (similar to the highlighted green on the screenshot above) and move (cut and paste) all files to the game directory.
   
   I'd recommend to cut and paste since steam do not automatically delete such downloads. If you accidentally forget them, they will needlessly occupy sweet 22Gb of your disk space.
   
   
4. Repeat steps 2 and 3 for each of the following commands, going from top to bottom (order is important):
   
   download_depot 883710 883713 4393975602406395031
   download_depot 883710 883713 7162327128522125833
   download_depot 883710 883713 5793354868189524285
   download_depot 883710 883713 1156567751026137187
   
   When moving files, choose overwrite conflicting files.
   
   
5. Minor thing: check that you have a file "883710" in your game directory. If not, simply create an empty file with this name.
   
   
6. Congratulations, now you have a copy of the game as of 17 December 2021.
   
   I would suggest to create a backup just in case if you accidentally update the game to the latest version.
   
   The game can be started as usual from your library. Decline update if asked.

DLC

If you own DLCs then you will need to downgrade them too. Here we provide a complete list of downloads for convenince.

You need to have a license (i.e. have them purchased), obviously. If you do not have a license for a particular DLC, steam will let you know and will simply refuse to download it.

Installation is straightforward, simply follow steps 2 and 3 from the previous section for every DLC you're interested in.

• Leon Costume: Arklay Sheriff
  download_depot 883710 920560 2669003398225873695
  
  
• Leon Costume: Noir
  download_depot 883710 920561 6392713664647636175
  
  
• Claire Costume: Military
  download_depot 883710 920562 9196745080453781884
  
  
• Claire Costume: Noir
  download_depot 883710 920563 7959039556979471395
  
  
• Claire Costume: Elza Walker
  download_depot 883710 920564 485499404818485741
  
  
• Leon Costume: '98
  download_depot 883710 920565 7989863790405454314
  
  
• Claire Costume: '98
  download_depot 883710 920566 8095813743934385036
  
  
• Original Ver. Soundtrack Swap
  download_depot 883710 920567 4740183878346553297
  
  
• Deluxe Weapon: Samurai Edge - Albert Model
  download_depot 883710 920568 4279712375368020791
  
  
• Deluxe Weapon: Samurai Edge - Jill Model
  download_depot 883710 920569 6786790012474040248
  
  
• Deluxe Weapon: Samurai Edge - Chris Model
  download_depot 883710 920570 2636455607782788145
  
  
• All In-game Rewards Unlock
  download_depot 883710 920571 4806048476751006628

Conclusion and bonus

We hope that you find this guide helpful.

We are thankful to SteamDB for providing an excellent service which was the primary source of information for this guide.

P.S. if you are curious to experience the release version of Resident Evil 2, here is the download:
download_depot 883710 883711 7825935250807867473

:)