The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth is a 2014 roguelike action-adventure game created by Edmund McMillen and developed and published by Nicalis. Rebirth was released for Linux, Microsoft Windows, macOS, PlayStation 4, and PlayStation Vita in November 2014. It was later released for Xbox One, New Nintendo 3DS, and Wii U in July 2015, for iOS in January 2017, and for Nintendo Switch in March 2017. Versions for PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S were released in November 2021.
Rebirth is a remake of The Binding of Isaac, which was created by McMillen and Florian Himsl and first released in 2011 as an Adobe Flash application. This platform had limits, so McMillen worked with Nicalis to develop Rebirth using a more advanced game engine. This allowed the game to include more content and gameplay features. Since its release, Rebirth has had four expansions: Afterbirth (2015), Afterbirth+ (2017), Repentance (2021), and Repentance+ (2024). These expansions added more game content and gameplay modes. Afterbirth+ also added support for user-created content.
The story of Rebirth is based on the biblical tale of the same name and was inspired by McMillen’s religious background. The player controls Isaac, a boy locked in his room by his mother, who believes she is acting on God’s will. When his mother tries to harm him, Isaac escapes to the basement and battles through randomly generated, roguelike dungeons. The player defeats monsters using Isaac’s tears as weapons and collects items that change his appearance, abilities, and attributes. Rebirth includes a limited multiplayer mode, allowing one additional player. This was later expanded to three additional players in Afterbirth and Afterbirth+. Full local co-op support was added in Repentance, allowing up to four players to choose from any playable characters. Online co-op support was added in November 2024 with Repentance+.
Rebirth received high praise from critics, who appreciated its gameplay and improvements over the original The Binding of Isaac. However, some reviewers criticized its graphic imagery. Afterbirth, Afterbirth+, and Repentance also received generally positive reviews, though critics noted their difficulty levels. By July 2015, Rebirth and The Binding of Isaac had sold over five million copies combined. The game is considered one of the best roguelike games ever made.
Gameplay
The game The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth is a 2D game where the player controls Isaac, a boy who travels through a basement and other areas to fight monsters and collect items. There are 33 other characters that can be unlocked. The game uses a roguelike style, meaning each level is randomly created using a seed number. These levels are made up of separate rooms, and each run includes at least one boss fight. A run ends when the player defeats one of several final bosses. If the player’s character dies, the game ends, which is called permadeath. However, players can save their progress at any time. Map seeds can be shared, allowing others to play the same dungeon layout. Runs using shared seeds do not earn achievements, as these seeds might make achieving them easier.
Controls are similar to a multidirectional shooter: the player moves Isaac with one set of controls and shoots tears (bullets) with another. Health is shown as hearts, with each heart representing half of the character’s total health. Players can find items that restore hearts or add more hearts. Bombs can damage enemies and break obstacles, keys can open doors and treasure chests, and coins can be used to buy items. Many items change the character’s abilities, such as speed or the power and reach of tears. Some items include a floating helper that fights alongside the player. Items are either passive, which give permanent effects when picked up, or active, which can be used at any time and either disappear or recharge after clearing rooms. Players can collect many passive items, whose effects combine to create strong abilities. Only one active item can be carried at a time. Players can also carry one consumable item, like tarot cards or pills, and one trinket, which acts like a passive item but can be swapped. Each floor has special rooms, such as treasure rooms, shops, mini-boss fights, and curse rooms.
Rebirth adds more items, monsters, and room types, including those that span multiple screens. It supports controller use and allows a second player to join locally using a drop-in-drop-out system. The second player controls a follower with the same abilities as the main character but costs the main character one heart. This follower cannot plant bombs or carry items. The Repentance expansion adds support for 4-player co-op, where extra players control fully functional characters.
Plot
The game The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth has a story that is similar to the biblical tale of the same name, just like the original game. The story is shown mainly through ending scenes that players unlock by beating bosses. These scenes can be still pictures with voiceovers or short animations.
Isaac is a young boy who lives with his mother in a small house on a hill. His mother believes she hears the voice of God, who tells her that Isaac is filled with sin and must be saved. She takes away his toys and clothes, thinking they are bad influences, and later locks him in his room to keep him safe from evil. When she is told by God to sacrifice Isaac to show her devotion, Isaac escapes through a hidden door in his room.
As Isaac travels through different floors, he faces his mother in battle. After defeating her, the game returns to Isaac's room, where his mother is about to kill him with a knife. A Bible falls from a shelf and hits her on the head, seemingly killing her. Isaac celebrates, but his mother appears behind him, still alive and holding the knife, showing that the scene was imagined.
Beating other bosses unlocks different endings. These endings usually suggest that Isaac, because of strong religious guilt, locked himself in a toy chest and died from not breathing, with the game's events being a hallucination.
The game's expansions add more endings that explain Isaac's past. These show that his father left the family, and his mother has been hurting him for a long time. In the final ending, Isaac goes to Heaven as his life flashes before him. Then, someone speaks up, revealing himself to be Isaac's father. The father asks if Isaac wants to change the story, and Isaac agrees. The father begins telling a new story about Isaac and both of his parents.
Development
The Binding of Isaac was created by Edmund McMillen and Florian Himsl in 2011 during a game development event called a game jam. This happened after McMillen finished his previous game, Super Meat Boy. Because Super Meat Boy was successful, McMillen did not worry about making a popular game. Instead, he wanted to make a game that combined the top-down dungeon style from The Legend of Zelda with the roguelike genre. He also included religious themes inspired by his childhood. The team used Adobe Flash to develop the game quickly. McMillen released the game on Steam for PC, and it became very popular. However, they found limitations in Flash that made it hard to add more content. They added more material with the Wrath of the Lamb expansion, but McMillen had to stop planning a second expansion because of these limits.
After the game’s release, Tyrone Rodriguez from Nicalis, a company that helped bring games like Cave Story and VVVVVV to consoles, offered to help port The Binding of Isaac to consoles. McMillen agreed but wanted the game recreated outside of Flash to include new content and fix bugs. He also wanted to avoid handling business matters, as he had had a difficult experience with Super Meat Boy. The console version, called Rebirth, was announced in 2012. It included improved 16-bit graphics, new content, and local cooperative play. However, online cooperative play was not added because it would take too long to develop.
McMillen wanted to completely redesign the game, especially its graphics, which he called an "eyesore." He asked players for their opinions on the art style for the remake. Artists were hired to update the original visuals, and new content was created. A new soundtrack was also commissioned from Matthias Bossi and Jon Evans.
Initially, McMillen and Rodriguez wanted to develop Rebirth for the Nintendo 3DS as a tribute to The Legend of Zelda. However, Nintendo did not approve the 3DS version in 2012 due to content concerns. Instead, the team focused on PC and PlayStation versions. Nicalis also discussed releasing the game on Xbox systems and considered an iOS version later. In 2013, development moved to the PlayStation 4, and the game was released for PC, PlayStation 4, and Vita on November 5, 2014.
During development, three Nintendo employees supported the game within the company. They helped secure approval for the 3DS and Wii U versions in 2014. McMillen and Nicalis adapted the game for these systems while keeping its core features. They spent about a year converting the game for the original 3DS, but performance was poor. They later used a development kit for the New Nintendo 3DS, which had better hardware. The 3DS and Wii U versions were released in 2015, along with an Xbox One version.
In 2016, Nicalis tried to release the game on iOS but was rejected by Apple for content reasons. After working with Apple, a universal iOS version with improvements was planned. However, adding this to the Vita port was low priority due to hardware limits. The core game was released for iOS in 2017.
In 2017, Nicalis confirmed the game would be released for the Nintendo Switch in March 2017. The release was delayed until March 17 due to last-minute adjustments. The Switch version allowed up to four players in cooperative mode, with additional players using Joy-Con controllers. The physical version included a manual similar to The Legend of Zelda’s original manual.
In 2025, Amazon listed a Nintendo Switch 2 version. Nicalis later announced the port would release in Q1 2026.
McMillen announced The Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth, the first expansion for Rebirth, in 2015. Afterbirth added new items, enemies, floors, bosses, and endings, including a harder mode called Greed Mode. It was released for PC, PlayStation 4, and Xbox One in 2015 and 2016. Due to hardware limits, Afterbirth is unlikely to be released on other platforms.
McMillen included hidden secrets in the game, which fans discovered on Reddit. He took extra steps to hide a new character, the Lost, in Rebirth. Unlocking it required specific in-game actions, and hints were scattered in the game. However, players found the Lost within 109 hours of the game’s release. McMillen was disappointed but still planned to release Afterbirth without rushing its release.
Reception and Legacy
According to review aggregator Metacritic, The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth received "generally favorable" reviews; the iOS version received "universal acclaim." Dan Stapleton of IGN praised Rebirth for the seemingly endless variation in gameplay created by each run-through, saying it gave him "plenty of motivation" to continue playing. His only criticism was the lack of in-game information about available power-ups. GameSpot’s Brent Todd wrote that while the game’s story and imagery may be initially disturbing, Rebirth has "speedy, varied gameplay and seemingly never-ending new features" that would keep players entertained for a long time. Simon Parkin of Eurogamer said that Rebirth "feels like the product of the psychotherapeutic process," but is "the most accessible Rogue-like [game] yet made" due to its easy control scheme and randomization of each run. Nic Rowen of Destructoid said that Rebirth was a great improvement on The Binding of Isaac, calling it "an incredible experience that can't be missed."
Afterbirth+ received mixed-to-favorable reviews from critics. Jose Otero of IGN praised its variety: "The unpredictable items and varied enemies make it one of the most wacky and replayable games I've ever experienced." Although Peter Glagowski of Destructoid gave its DLC a positive review, calling it an "impressive effort," he wrote that the DLC’s base content has little to offer newcomers to the series.
Rock, Paper, Shotgun was critical of the DLC’s difficulty, which it thought was largely derived from random, untelegraphed enemy behavior. About Afterbirth+’s design cohesion, reviewer Adam Smith characterized its DLC as "mashing together existing parts of the game and producing either a weak cover version or a clumsy remix." Review website Beastby criticized Afterbirth+’s fairness: "The question isn't always 'Will I enjoy the gameplay loop?' but rather 'How many unfair runs will it take for me to have one in which I stand a chance?'" The expansion’s modding application programming interface was called "a disappointment" by members of the Team Alpha modding group, who expressed frustration with the API’s "massive shortcomings" and Nicalis’ lack of support.
Jeffrey Yu of Game Rant attributed the game’s enduring popularity to its accessible and addictive gameplay loop, which allows players to jump in easily while offering depth through countless item combinations and secrets. Yu also highlighted the strength of the fanbase, noting that the Let’s Play community on YouTube significantly contributed to the game’s success by showcasing its replayability and progressive learning curve. He also pointed out that the game’s inclusion in Steam sales and the developer’s previous success with Super Meat Boy helped garner attention, leading to increased daily sales months after its initial release.