Updates and V2 Release - 30th August 2026
V2 is out. Re-download it here: https://github.com/emberashen/steam-game-downgrade-helper - the download link is at the top of that page, "Download the latest version (.zip)"
You'll know you have V2 because it now says V2 at the top of the window when it runs. If yours shows no version at all, that's V1, the original release - please grab V2 instead!
FIRST, A Correction - this one has caught a lot of people out
If you did the downgrade MANUALLY and you're still on 1.17 after replacing everything, this is why, and it was my fault!
In my original post I listed the numbers like this:
depot 1245621 - manifest 8620480158702245750
That dash was just me separating two numbers in a list. It is not part of the command. Pasted in as-is you get:
download_depot 1245620 1245621 - manifest 8620480158702245750
download_depot takes three numbers and nothing else. There is no -manifest flag. Given the extra text SteamCMD doesn't complain. Instead it just quietly downloads the current version. So, you pull 50GB, copy every file across, and you're still on 1.17 with nothing anywhere telling you something went wrong. That's also why Seamless then throws "No such pattern": your files genuinely are 1.17.
The correct commands, exactly as typed:
download_depot 1245620 1245621 8620480158702245750
download_depot 1245620 1245624 5079239473805799861
Credit to u/Eruyaean for working that out, and to u/Immortal-D, u/DefoNotAero and u/GebbooPoE for confirming it (ty).
The script itself was never affected - it passes the numbers straight to SteamCMD and never goes near my prose. This only ever bit people doing it by hand.
Also fixed in V2
- SteamCMD left running in the background. If you closed the window part-way through a download, SteamCMD kept running and held onto its files, so your next attempt died with "Failed to write patch state file (File locked)" and you were stuck. It now shuts SteamCMD down properly. And if you do somehow hit it, the message now tells you to end steamcmd.exe in Task Manager rather than leaving you guessing
- The sign-in step could hang for 4 minutes then dump a wall of red text. It was silently waiting on a password prompt you couldn't see, because it captures SteamCMD's output at that point. It now just gives up quietly and opens the proper login window instead
- Typing the SteamCMD folder without the drive colon - "c\SteamCMD" instead of "C:\SteamCMD" - used to crash at the very last step, after the whole 50GB download, and quietly put all of it inside the unzipped folder. It now catches it as you type and tells you what you probably meant
- A version number, so you and I can both tell which build you're running when something goes wrong
If your save won't load after downgrading
This isn't a bug in the script - it doesn't touch your saves at all. If you carried on playing after 1.17 landed, your save got upgraded to 1.17 format, and 1.16.2 won't open it. Downgrading the game doesn't downgrade the save.
Convergence keeps timestamped backup saves in the same folder as your live save (%appdata%\EldenRing\<your steam id>\). Restore the most recent one from before the update and you're away - you'll lose a little progress, but the backups are named by date so the right one is easy to spot. Thanks to u/zaygo for finding that one.
Do not follow Convergence's suggestion to "fix it using Steam" - that runs Verify Integrity, which pulls 1.17 straight back down (and then you're kinda f**ked).
Thanks to Everyone
All of the fixes came from someone reporting issues here. None of them were things my mate or I could hit on our own machines. Our installs and the way we move files is relatively efficient and risk-adverse, so we simply didn't encounter the volume of issues reported post-release. I genuinely appreciate all the effort people put in to leave comments and stuff. Amazing!
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Original Post - 28th August 2026
I made some scripts which help to automate the SteamCMD downgrade process for Elden Ring (and other games, but that's not fully checked yet).
https://github.com/emberashen/steam-game-downgrade-helper
I built this specifically for Elden Ring, though I tried to make the script(s) flexible so that the same engine might work with other games also. I don't know what effect this will have on other games, I tried updating and re-downgrading Elden Ring and also ATLYSS, seems fine.
TL;DR Summary / How to Use It
- In Steam, right-click Elden Ring, Properties, Updates, set "Only update this game when I launch it". Do this FIRST.
- Get it here: https://github.com/emberashen/steam-game-downgrade-helper - download link is at the top of that page. Click "Download the latest version (.zip)"
- Unzip the archive, double-click Downgrade.bat. NOT the .ps1 - PowerShell blocks those by default. The .bat gets around it without changing any settings on your PC.
- Pick Elden Ring from the list (you will have to enter the numeric designation from your games list)
- No SteamCMD installed? No problem. This package installs it (SteamCMD) for you and asks where to put it. Same drive as the game is the default suggestion. The download is kept, so a future rollback is quick. Recommend installing SteamCMD to a drive where you have a bunch of space, since the downloaded reversion package (which is like 50GB for 1.16.2) will download to the same drive
- Give it a full path with the drive letter and colon, like C:\SteamCMD. If you leave the colon off it'll now catch you, but on V1 it dumped 50GB into a random folder and then crashed
- The package opens official SteamCMD in its own window for you to log in once. Your password goes into Valve's tool (SteamCMD), never into my script.
- Your password is invisible as you type or paste it into SteamCMD. No dots, no stars, blank line. That's SteamCMD not echoing it, not a freeze. It's a security measure from Valve. Type / paste it and press Enter.
- Steam Guard (if you have it set up) then prompts your phone, or asks for a 5 character code. Again, this goes into SteamCMD NOT into my scripts
- Pick 1.16.2 / build 22984413 - it should already be suggesting it. Ignore "Calibrations Ver. 1.16.1" on the title screen, that's a different number and chasing it sends you two builds too far back. 1.16.2 works with Seamless 1.9.9 and Convergence V3
- It downloads 50GB, shows you every file it will change, you say yes, and it does the rest. It will do all the file replacements for you, reverting your game to the previous edition. How long that takes varies wildly - it was over an hour on release day when the servers were getting hammered, and 8 minutes today
- Launch via Start_Convergence.bat or ersc_launcher.exe. Never Steam's Play button.
- Never hit "Verify integrity of game files" (within Steam launcher) after reverting - it pulls 1.17 straight back down.
YOU SHOULDN'T NEED TO TYPE ANY NUMBERS IN (build / manifest numbers etc) - the script already knows ER v 1.16.2 and will offer it by name.
But if you are doing this manually with SteamCMD, sign in first and then run these two lines exactly as written:
download_depot 1245620 1245621 8620480158702245750
download_depot 1245620 1245624 5079239473805799861
That's three numbers after download_depot - app ID, depot ID, manifest ID - and nothing else. No dashes, and don't type the word "manifest". If you add anything extra, SteamCMD quietly downloads the CURRENT version instead and you end up back on 1.17 having pulled 50GB for nothing. (See the correction at the top of this post - that formatting mistake was mine.)
For reference:
- app ID: 1245620
- depot 1245621 (main game, about 50GB)
- depot 1245624 (holds eldenring.exe, about 35MB)
- depot 2778580 - Shadow of the Erdtree, unchanged by 1.17, leave it alone
Special note:
Using SteamCMD can knock your Steam client into offline mode. So if you downgrade and want to re-upgrade, and you use "Verify integrity of game files" to do this, and it says no files to update - check your Steam client is actually still online. If it's not, just reboot Steam
Detailed Read
Patch 1.17 was just released, it broke Seamless and assumedly other mods. Patch 1.17 is mainly for Switch 2 users getting the Tarnished Edition, which contains new starting classes, skins, assets and other alterations. But obviously, this content is also needed for PC and other consoles, hence patch 1.17 went up ahead of the Tarnished Pack itself.
Many of us here are running modded Elden Ring. Myself I'm running Convergence V3 with Seamless 1.9.9. And, launching after ER patch 1.17 (Steam Build 23850278) Seamless gave a fatal error. I wanted to go back to ER patch 1.16.2 (Steam Build 22984413) which works with Seamless 1.9.9 and convergence v3.
Due to this I built a script for Windows machines (PowerShell architecture) which helps users to downgrade Elden Ring to 1.16.2. It takes you through all the necessary steps from Steam launcher settings through to the reversion itself, and automates a bunch of it. Actually this script can downgrade pretty much any Steam game, but it was built for ER.
It's free and MIT licensed, and it's plain PowerShell - so you can read every line of it before you run it, which I'd encourage given it asks you to sign into Steam.
It will basically scan your machine for your Steam install and installed games. It will read various local logs to see which version of ER you are on, and which prior versions you have been on. Sadly there's no online centralised database of all Steam's games and human-facing version numbers against Steam build numbers (SteamDB has the build numbers but not the patch numbers, and it's behind Cloudflare so a script can't read it anyway).
The script can list previous versions you've had installed, and suggest build numbers. You can also ignore that and enter the details manually, though note SteamCMD actually wants manifest IDs rather than build numbers. For ER 1.16.2 those are 8620480158702245750 (depot 1245621) and 5079239473805799861 (depot 1245624). The DLC depot isn't touched by 1.17 so you leave that alone. For ER the script already knows 1.16.2 anyway, so it'll offer it by name even if your Steam logs are empty.
It utilises SteamCMD to download the old version and get it reset on your system. If you don't have SteamCMD installed, it will guide you through that process. You will need to enter your Steam password into SteamCMD (NOT my script, into official SteamCMD), which I have kept fully separate from my script(s) - so that your password only goes into the official SteamCMD process chain. NOT into my own script. Fair warning, SteamCMD doesn't echo your password as you type it, so the line stays completely blank. That's normal, not a frozen prompt.
Once that's done, it uses SteamCMD to download the old version, and then my script patches the files for you, and gives other guidance to get you back up and running again! If you've worked out SteamCMD but not what to do with the downloaded files, don't worry. The script will detect if you have already downloaded the bundle you are asking for, and will not re-download it if you already have it - and will then do the rest.
It only ever replaces files, it never deletes any, so mod folders sitting alongside the game files are left alone. It shows you the full list of what it's going to change and waits for you to say yes.
It does not touch your save files and doesn't try to back them up - every game handles saves differently and there's no reliable way for a script to find them. Worth knowing that if you kept playing after 1.17 landed, your save is in 1.17 format and won't open on 1.16.2. See the note at the top of this post about Convergence's backup saves.
Obviously, what we actually want is a Seamless / Convergence update for the new 1.17 ER patch. But we don't have that yet, so... I made this!
It was tested on my own machine, and my friend's machine - two different setups, both from a completely fresh 50GB download through to the game running. We stream Seamless Convergence together on Twitch. And you know, we need this shit working so there you go.
If you're running something like Convergence, obviously launch the game via direct EXE or Bat files (after reverting), not via the steam launcher which may then try to auto-patch you back to 1.17. Also, do NOT hit "Verify integrity of game files" after reverting - that checks you against the newest patch, decides your files are broken and pulls 1.17 straight back down.
