Can you choose which version of a game to play on Steam?

Question

I want to play a game in an older update, but can't see a way to choose a specific version. Is this possible?

Answer 1

Megos answer isn't entirely correct, it depends, so I'll expand a bit.

In general, as Mego says, there is no way to do this, but some publishers do provide this option.

For example, the Paradox Grand Strategy games offer the option to roll back to any prior version and play that.

The only possible mechanic to do this is the beta program. Originally this was provided to allow users to opt into a new patch before it was released, but it also got adapted to provide roll backs.

1. Right-Click your game of choice in your Steam Library. Select Properties, select the Betas tab.

2. Click on the drop down menu at the top, which should say "NONE - Opt out of all beta programs".

3. If this menu now offers earlier versions, then your game offers the rollback function you seek, otherwise there is nothing you can do.

Answer 2

Almost certainly no. Steam refuses to open a game unless it's the latest version or you're in offline mode, and does not offer any mechanism to download, install, and play older versions of games. The only way this would be possible is if the game developer kept older versions as part of the game content and had some sort of version selection in the game.

In short, your options are:

1. Play in online mode, with the latest version of the game.
2. Play in offline mode, with the last version of the game that you have downloaded.

Answer 3

DepotDownloader

There is a way to download older versions of games from Steam, but:

• Some games may not have older versions available (although most of them seem to)
• It requires a third-party tool
• It requires quite a bit of manual work, and if the game has content across multiple depots or you'd like to install DLCs, it gets more complicated
• Even after downloading the older version of a game you'll likely have to do more work to prevent it from being updated to the latest version
• If you have any save games in Steam Cloud you may bork them depending how you run the game

This is actually quite new to me, so I'll give you the steps I followed:

1. Find the manifests to download

   1. Go to https://steamdb.info and find the game

   2. Click Patches to see if the game has older builds available

   3. If the game has older builds, go back a page and go to Depots

   4. Look through the depots and figure out which ones you need

      • Some games have all the content in one depot; for example, Return to Monkey Island has one depot per OS:

        https://steamdb.info/app/2060130/depots/

      • Other games have multiple depots you'll need to download. For example, it looks like Civilization V has a couple base depots and another depot for the executable:

        https://steamdb.info/app/8930/depots/

      • Games will also have separate depots for DLC

   5. If the game only has one depot, click on the depot and then go to Manifests on the left

   6. If the game has multiple depots

      1. Go back a page and go back to Patches

      2. Find the build you want and click on it (the date and patch title are links)

      3. Near the top, click on the build number to go to the changelist

      4. Look for lines like:

         public Depot 2060131 manifests: 6518301106548196498

2. Download the manifests

   1. Make sure you have .NET 6.0 or Docker installed

   2. Download DepotDownloader

   3. Use DepotDownloader to download each depot, providing the app ID, depot ID, and manifest, e.g.

      dotnet DepotDownloader.dll -app 2060130 -depot 2060131 -manifest 6518301106548196498 -username USERNAME -dir depots -remember-password
      

      Or with Docker:

      docker run --rm --user $(id -u):$(id -g) -v "$PWD:/workdir" -it mcr.microsoft.com/dotnet/runtime:6.0 dotnet /workdir/DepotDownloader.dll -app 2060130 -depot 2060131 -manifest 6518301106548196498 -username USERNAME -dir /workdir/depots -remember-password
      

3. Make backups

   Back up the depots you just downloaded as well as any save games (which may be incompatible with the older verison of the game)

4. Lastly, you'll need to figure out how to run the game. Some options:

   • Copy the downloaded content over your game content in Steam. This may work but Steam will probably try to update the game. You could try making the game directory read-only as a potential workaround. YMMV.
   • Add the downloaded game as a non-Steam game in Steam
   • Run the game outside of Steam

   #2 and #3 will probably only work if the game doesn't require Steam to run. If it does, you'll have to replace the game's executable with one that doesn't require Steam.

You can get support for DepotDownloader here: https://github.com/SteamRE/DepotDownloader/discussions

GOG rollback

The question was specific to Steam, but in case you happen to own the game on GOG as well, GOG has a rollback feature for some games: https://docs.gog.com/gc-rollback/

It looks like you have to install the game with the latest version first, but once it's installed you can choose to roll back to another version, if the game supports it (support seems to be limited).