Coming Soon: The Binding of Isaac: Repentance

The Binding of Isaac franchise is one of my favorite game series of all time. This collection of roguelike horror/adventure games tells the story of Isaac. His mother becomes radicalized by televangelists, eventually believing the voice of God wants her to sacrifice her own son. Isaac flees to the basement to escape, entering a world of unimaginable horror inspired by his mother’s interpretation of biblical texts. He fights monsters and demons with his tears and any other object he can find in the ever-expanding labyrinth of the basement.

The original The Binding of Isaac released in 2011 on PC. Developer Edmund McMillen collaborated for Florian Himsl on a weeklong gamejam in Actionscript 2. McMillen realized the limitations of the engine and put together a completed version of the game on Steam. A demo was also released to Newgrounds, which is where I first found and obsessed over the game. The Wrath of Lamb expansion released in 2012, adding 70% more content to the base game.

McMillen continued on the project with the release of The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth, a remake of the game in a much more robust engine. This allowed the game to more easily be ported to console and mobile devices. The updated graphics and expanded content seems to constantly be growing, with two DLCs so far: Afterbirth and Afterbirth+.

Let me put the scope of the game into perspective. On PC, I have almost 300 hours on the original The Binding of Isaac and closer to 400 hours on Rebirth; I’ve unlocked 50% of the content in the original and about 30% of the remake. This isn’t counting my progress on the Nintendo Switch or PS4 release of Afterbirth+. We’re not even going to touch on the prequel game The Legend of Bumbo, which is a roguelike horror/puzzle game about the beloved beggar NPC in The Binding of Isaac universe. I have well over 1000 hours on this game spanning back to the demo on Newgrounds and I still haven’t seen everything.

On 31 March, The Binding of Isaac will grow again. McMillen is releasing the final planned DLC for Rebirth called Repentance. This is being described as “a game too big to be called a sequel.” By the time Repentance is added to the game, there will be over 5000 new room layouts, 130 new items, 100 new enemies, 25 new bosses, 2 new playable characters, and an alternate path leading to new chapters and a brand new ending/boss battle option. They’re estimating the new DLC will add an additional 500 hours of content to the game.

The teaser trailer is beautiful, featuring 3D renderings of some of the iconic items in the game and some of Isaac’s new friends lurking in the background.

McMillen and his development team have been releasing weekly updates exploring the development of Repentance since 28 September 2020. It’s fascinating to see how this process comes together. From concept sketches to demos of the new score, the entire process is being demystified as The Binding of Isaac inches ever closer to its final form.

The Binding of Isaac: Repentance is scheduled to release as DLC on Steam on 31 March 2021.