The Binding of Isaac Rebirth

The Binding of Isaac Rebirth is a roguelike indie game designed by Edmund McMillen and developed and published by Nicalis. Rebirth was released for Linux, Microsoft Windows, OS X, PlayStation 4 and PlayStation Vita in November 2014, for Xbox One, New Nintendo 3DS and Wii U in July 2015, for iOS in January 2017 and for Nintendo Switch in March 2017. The PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S versions were released in November 2021.

Isaac, a child, and his mother live in a small house on a hill, both happily keeping to themselves, with Isaac drawing pictures and playing with his toys, and his mother watching Christian broadcasts on television. Isaac’s mother then hears “a voice from above”, stating her son is corrupted with sin, and needs to be saved. She removes all his possessions (including toys and clothing), believing they were the corrupting agents, and later locks him in his room to protect him from the evil outside.

When she receives instructions to sacrifice her son to prove her devotion to her faith, Isaac flees through a trap door in his room, leading to “the unknown depths below”. Like the original, The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth is a top-down 2D game in which the player controls the boy Isaac, amongst thirty three other unlockable characters, as he traverses the basement and beyond, fighting off monsters and collecting items. The gameplay is presented in a roguelike style; the levels are procedurally generated through a random seed into a number of self-contained rooms, including at least one boss battle.

A run is completed by beating one of a number of different final bosses. Like most roguelike games, it has permadeath: when the player character dies, the game is over. Rebirth allows a play-through to be saved at any point. Map seeds can be shared, allowing for multiple people to try the same dungeon layout. However, seeded runs do not earn a player achievements, preventing players from using seeds which make getting these achievements easier.