Steam itself will not care if the game files are not up to date, individual games might.
You don't even need the external tool, you can use the Steam terminal itself to download the depots, which I personally find more palatable than having another application that is getting access to my username and password (it needs those to get the access from Steam). Even though I don't think that tool is malicious I would still prefer to not have to rely on it.
Go to SteamDB, and search up your game.
Click on the app ID of the game you're looking for to go to its details page.
Take a look at the depots, and click on the depot ID of the one that looks like the one you want to download.
Click on the Manifests tab. Look at the list and find the version that you want to download. Record its manifest ID.
Open the Steam console. You can do this by opening a command window "Run" by pressing «Win + R» and then enter the command: steam://open/console, and then press Enter, or by opening any browser and enter the URL-address field write the same command: steam://open/console. You can even have it always available when you start Steam by appending -console to the launch options of the shortcut to the Steam exe.
The syntax to the "download_depot" command is as follows: download_depot [] [] [] : download a single depot
You only need to worry about the first three arguments to it. Type the command, then the app ID, depot ID, and the manifest ID of the depot version you want.
Wait for Steam to download the depot. You won't see any indication of progress, but you can tell it's downloading by looking at the network usage on your downloads page. The download can pause/resume if your connection goes out, but won't if you restart the client.
After the download is done, Steam will show you where the files were downloaded to.
Go to the game's installation directory, and move the files somewhere else. Then go to where the depot files were downloaded to, and move everything over to the game folder.
You may have to rename the game's EXE file if the dev changed the launch options recently. You can find the current EXE name by going to the game's SteamDB page and clicking on the Configuration tab. 11. You should now be able to launch the old version through Steam.
Personally I found that you can just start the game from the download location and it will still have the Steam overlay if the game basically uses Steam as DRM.
Yep, that works as well.
I use depotdownloader because I automated my downgrade script for Beat Saber, makes things faster.
Are you downgrading to several different versions? Because I've used the console variant and just run the game from the download folder and Steam doesn't update it
Yes, I keep several Beat Saber versions for different mods and replace the files in the main directory when Beat Saber updates.
I've just not replaced the files in any directory at all, just start the game from the download location for the depot (one should be able to rename the folder for it to the version) and then you keep any number of versions to play available by just going into that download location and starting the game.
At least that's how it has worked for me. I just thought that was easier than having to replace files every time.
At least that’s how it has worked for me. I just thought that was easier than having to replace files every time.
It is, I just can't do it because I have all the custom songs and plugins in my main folder and copying/linking all of that is a lot more work than just overwriting the game files each time.
In case anyone needs it, you can actually downgrade Steam games. It just doesn't have an UI unfortunately.
There's a tool for it here: https://github.com/SteamRE/DepotDownloader
SteamDB can be used to find the game ID and depot ID: https://steamdb.info/
Steam itself will not care if the game files are not up to date, individual games might.
You don't even need the external tool, you can use the Steam terminal itself to download the depots, which I personally find more palatable than having another application that is getting access to my username and password (it needs those to get the access from Steam). Even though I don't think that tool is malicious I would still prefer to not have to rely on it.
-consoleto the launch options of the shortcut to the Steam exe.download_depot [] [] []: download a single depotYou only need to worry about the first three arguments to it. Type the command, then the app ID, depot ID, and the manifest ID of the depot version you want.
Personally I found that you can just start the game from the download location and it will still have the Steam overlay if the game basically uses Steam as DRM.
Yep, that works as well.
I use depotdownloader because I automated my downgrade script for Beat Saber, makes things faster.
Are you downgrading to several different versions? Because I've used the console variant and just run the game from the download folder and Steam doesn't update it
Yes, I keep several Beat Saber versions for different mods and replace the files in the main directory when Beat Saber updates.
I've just not replaced the files in any directory at all, just start the game from the download location for the depot (one should be able to rename the folder for it to the version) and then you keep any number of versions to play available by just going into that download location and starting the game.
At least that's how it has worked for me. I just thought that was easier than having to replace files every time.
It is, I just can't do it because I have all the custom songs and plugins in my main folder and copying/linking all of that is a lot more work than just overwriting the game files each time.
Yeah, that makes sense.