pre Download games

[Kolhax]

I want to pre Download a game, my friend told me he will give me a key soon and I want to be able to play with him AAs soon as he give me the key, is that possible?

[d0x360]

That's not what this is for and no you can't preload a game without owning it first and you can't preload a depot because it's encrypted and steam won't be able to see it. You have to preload through the steam client which you can do if you have a key and preload is an option for that specific game.

Also if you have a fast Internet connection it's usually better to just wait for release and download the game because it's significantly faster than the decryption process which can take quite a while especially on lower end CPUs.

[Dimensional]

I feel this option is nonviable for the reasons mentioned above. In order to be able to download a game at all, you need a license to it associated to your account, or access to an account that has a license to the game. This license is what tells the Steam Servers that you are allowed access to the Depot Key & the Manifests.

The license is required to acquire the Depot Key, get the list of depots that your game has access to, and through that list, know which manifest to download. But your license is required in order to get a Manifest Request Code that is required to download said manifest. This request code is the same for every person who owns a copy, but it changes every 5 minutes.

Without the Depot Key, it is impossible to decrypt the CDN chunks and combine them into the appropriate files, not to mention it is used with the Manifest to decrypt the path for said files. Without the Manifest, you will not know what files need to be downloaded for the game, and there is not ability to search through a depot folders at all.

So the only way to pre-download a game is to have someone install it for you using their account, should they own a copy of the game, before you get a key for yourself. This will not allow you to play it before of course. If the game is not released yet, and there is no early access that hasn't started, then it's impossible entirely to pre-download because the license to play is not unlocked yet.

As such, I don't think this request is remotely possible in all contexts.