How To Rollback Steam Game Update

Steam will nevertheless let you revert to one-time game builds, despite beta concerns

(Image credit: Valve)

Update: Valve has responded to claims that Steam will soon disable the option to download previous versions of games. In a statement provided to PC Gamer, a spokesperson clarifies the visitor is not planning to disable access to older versions of software.

"Nosotros are actually not planning to disable downloading old builds. What nosotros are working on is an arroyo on treatment border cases involving unowned content, and helping partners more easily take downwards builds that demand to be removed for things like copyright issues," the argument reads. "We'll have more than to share on that work when it's set to ship."

Original story: The pick to revert to an older build of a game has been an undocumented feature of Steam for a while now, but every bit SteamDB notes, the latest beta changes how the client connects to its content commitment network, removing the access customers had to previous versions of their games.

Going dorsum to an earlier build wasn't something every Steam user was likely to need—in 2020 what was previously a command line role was quietly inverse to crave a tertiary-party tool—but it notwithstanding had value. Updates to games like Chiliad Theft Auto 4, Beat Saber, Dragonball Z: Kakarot, and various Bethesda RPGs have broken mods and required either updates from the modders or rolling dorsum to an older build. Some speedrunners and accomplishment hunters rely on access to specific versions of games, and they're also worth having from an archival perspective. When an update to Age of Empires 2: Definitive Edition made quondam replays unwatchable, casters had to downgrade to a previous patch to get them back.

It'southward worth pointing out that this is different to when developers give access to variant builds via beta branches, which won't be affected. Even if this change does go alee in Steam'due south stable version, yous should notwithstanding be able to access the builds you need to play Euro Truck Simulator ii and American Truck Simulator in VR and enable carve up-screen co-op in Resident Evil 5, for instance.

"We practise not know if Steam CDN will enforce this requirement for all games (if at all), or what other requirements may be", the SteamDB team writes, while also noting, "This change will touch how SteamDB operates, and we will no longer be able to fully track file lists of all games on Steam".

According to the beta patch notes, the change volition "Ensure that all installed and Cloud-enabled games are synchronized equally presently as possible, to avoid delays when launching games and to set for possible offline play." The SteamDB team explained separately that this is unrelated to the possible outcome with accessing older builds, however.

We've reached out to Valve for comment and will let you lot know if we receive a reply.

Jody'south first reckoner was a Commodore 64, so he remembers having to employ a code bicycle to play Pool of Radiance. A former music announcer who interviewed everyone from Giorgio Moroder to Trent Reznor, Jody also co-hosted Commonwealth of australia'south first radio show about videogames, Zed Games. He's written for Rock Paper Shotgun, The Big Issue, GamesRadar, Zam, Glixel, and Playboy.com, whose cheques with the bunny logo made for fun conversations at the bank. Jody's first article for PC Gamer was published in 2015, he edited PC Gamer Indie from 2017 to 2018, and really did play every Warhammer videogame.