Edmund Charles McMillen was born on March 2, 1980. He is an American video game designer and artist. He is known for creating Adobe Flash games with unique art styles. His works include the 2010 platformer game Super Meat Boy, the 2011 roguelite game The Binding of Isaac, its 2014 remake The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth, and the 2026 turn-based roguelite game Mewgenics.
Early life
McMillen was born on March 2, 1980, to a family of "born-again Christians" of Mexican descent. He lived in Watsonville, Santa Cruz County, California, his entire life and attended Soquel High School. He enjoys drawing, and his favorite subject is monsters. During much of his childhood, McMillen lived with his grandmother, who he says helped him the most with his creative work. Later in life, he received a box from his grandmother that contained all of his childhood drawings. Many of these drawings are included in a part of his game called "Aether," which is part of The Basement Collection. Players can see them by unlocking a section called "The Box." His childhood experiences are shown in many of his games, especially "The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth." In an interview with Indie Game: The Movie, he explained that his family faced problems with drug and alcohol addiction.
Career
Edmund McMillen began his career by creating comics for independent publishers. Although he now focuses on video games, he has made comics featuring Meat Boy, the main character from the game Super Meat Boy, to promote the game. His most famous games include Meat Boy and Super Meat Boy, which were released for PC, Xbox 360, and PlayStation 4. Other games he has created are Gish, Aether, The Binding of Isaac, and Coil. Gish won the Adventure Game of the Year and Indie Game of the Year awards in 2004. Coil was considered for the Innovation Award at the 2009 Independent Games Festival. McMillen was the original artist and animator for Braid, but the game’s visuals were later changed by David Hellman. Braid won the Innovation Award at the 2006 Independent Games Festival and received several awards in 2008, including Best Platformer and Best Original Downloadable Console Game. Aether was a finalist at the 2009 IndieCade event and received an honorable mention.
McMillen and programmer Tommy Refenes formed Team Meat, a company that makes games without using outside publishers. Their first game, Super Meat Boy, was released on October 20, 2010, for Xbox 360 and Steam on November 30, 2010. A version for the Nintendo Wii was canceled because of technical limits on the console. A physical copy of the game was released in April 2011. Due to Sony’s initial refusal to publish the game, Team Meat signed a contract that prevents the game from being released for PlayStation 3. McMillen and Refenes said, “We feel like we did it right the first time,” after the game’s success and the decision not to make a sequel. The development of Super Meat Boy was shown in the film Indie Game: The Movie.
In 2017, Refenes told Eurogamer that McMillen was no longer part of Team Meat and would not help develop the sequel, Super Meat Boy Forever. McMillen later confirmed this in a blog post. Forever was released in late 2020 for multiple platforms.
The Binding of Isaac is an indie roguelike game made by Edmund McMillen and Florian Himsl. It was first released in 2011 for Windows and later for macOS and Linux. The game’s title and story are inspired by the Bible’s tale of Isaac. In the game, Isaac’s mother receives a message from God asking for her son’s life as a test of faith, and Isaac escapes into a monster-filled basement to survive. Players control Isaac or other characters as they explore a randomly generated dungeon, fighting enemies and collecting items to defeat bosses and Isaac’s mother.
The game was created during a one-week game jam to make a Zelda-inspired roguelike. McMillen wanted to express his thoughts about religion, influenced by conflicts between his Catholic and born-again Christian family. He released the game on Steam in 2011 without much promotion, expecting few sales. However, the game became popular due to Let’s Play videos. An expansion, Wrath of the Lamb, was released in 2012, but further updates were limited by the Flash platform. Nintendo initially planned to release a version for the 3DS but later canceled the deal because of the game’s religious themes.
In 2014, developer Nicalis helped McMillen remake The Binding of Isaac as Rebirth, adding new features, improving graphics, and enabling ports for other systems like PlayStation 4, Vita, Xbox One, Wii U, 3DS, and Switch. Rebirth has three expansions: Afterbirth (2015), Afterbirth+ (2017), and Repentance (2021).
In 2016, McMillen announced a prequel to The Binding of Isaac called The Legend of Bum-bo, made with programmer James Interactive. The game took four years to develop without a working prototype. It was released on Steam in 2019 and later on iOS, Epic Games Store, GOG.com, Switch, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S in 2022.
The End Is Nigh is a platform adventure game made by Edmund McMillen and Tyler Glaiel. It was released in 2017 for Windows via Steam and later for macOS, Linux, and Nintendo Switch. A PlayStation 4 and Vita version was in development. The game is described as a spiritual successor to Super Meat Boy.
Themes in the game were inspired by McMillen’s personal and professional experiences, including legal threats, his wife’s pregnancy, and agoraphobia. He described this time as the “darkest” in his career and considered whether to continue making games. He said The End Is Nigh was designed to make players question if challenges in the game are worth the effort, contrasting with Super Meat Boy’s focus on perseverance. McMillen described the game’s protagonist, Ash, as someone experiencing a “life falling apart.”