You can replace referenced assets in your scene with new assets without losing any of your reference edits (such as animation) as long as the published attributes of both assets match.
To replace a referenced asset in your scene
The referenced asset is replaced in the scene with the contents of the new file.
As long as the new file has an asset with the same name as the old asset and a set of identically named published attributes, the new asset retains all the reference edits made to the old asset.
Replacing references also works with published anchors. For example, if you have a prop file that needs to be parented to a character’s hand in a parent file, you can publish the prop as a child anchor in its own file and then parent a reference to the hand. You can then create multiple versions of the prop, all with unique geometry and names and publish a child anchor of the same name on all of them. You can then use the above method to swap the various props in and out of the character’s hand. For another example, see Example: Swapping arms on a robot.