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The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth's upcoming Afterbirth DLC detailed

The original game is getting a free Hard mode.

The Binding of Isaac creator Edmund McMillan has detailed the DLC coming to his recent "Rebirth" remake of his horrific action roguelike.

Expected to come out around the middle of this year, the Afterbirth DLC will include the following:

  • 100+ new items
  • a full new game mode that will totally change how you play
  • 10 new challenges
  • a new playable character
  • a new alternate final chapter
  • new alt floors
  • new game endings
  • new final bosses
  • tons of new bosses and enemies
  • new item pickups, cards, pills, etc.
  • tons of new achievements and rewards for beating the game on hard
  • new co-op babies
  • new transformations

"You could almost get lost in all that new content! It should easily extend the gameplay time by another 100-200 hours," McMillen wrote on the game's dev blog.

McMillen is looking for fan suggestions on what sort of item combo effects he should add. Suggestions include: "Midas Touch + Ecoli = Golden Poop on touch, or Brimstone + Mom's Knife = Barfing Knives." He encourages folks to post their idea on this Reddit Thread.

He did a similar thing with potential Challenge Modes. In this latest update he listed some of his favourites including one that makes the game run at double speed and a boss rush mode.

Finally, the original The Binding of Isaac's programmer Florian Himsl is adding harder versions of the bosses to the classic game. Called "eternal bosses," McMillen described these as "white over-powered bosses that play very differently."

"He made so many I thought it might be cool to attempt to patch the old game with a new 'hard mode' that will feature tons of new eternal bosses, enemies and a few other little features that will keep skilled players on their toes," McMillen explained.

"This update will be free, but will only update for those of who own Wrath of the Lamb. Not sure when he will be done, but its a very nice update for the thousands of people who still play the classic game daily. This update will also feature tons of bug fixes that Florian hasn't been able to fix for a long time."

Here's some footage of the old game's upcoming new bosses in action.

Cover image for YouTube videoBinding of Isaac Update Reveal