The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth

2014 · Nicalis / Edmund McMillen · ~40h to finish

A game about item literacy: the run is won or lost by whether you recognise a pickup you have never seen before.

roguelikeactionPCPlayStation 5Xbox SeriesNintendo SwitchSteam Deck

Global—UNRATED

Baseline difficulty6.7PUNISHING

Sustained pressure. Progress is earned.

Price on Steam

$14.99

USD · United States · checked just now

View on Steam ↗

The fingerprint

12.55.07.510

Obscurity

8.8

Learning Curve

6.0

Grind

5.9

Reaction

5.4

Strategy

5.0

Punishment

5.0

Execution

4.7

Puzzle

2.5

PUBLISHEDHARDEST DEMAND FIRST

Punishment drops 1.2 points — you handle this better than most.
Execution drops 0.8 points — you handle this better than most.
Assist options shave roughly 3.0 points off, if you use them.

These are generic numbers. Calibrate and this whole page re-scores around you.

Calibrate

Screenshots

IGDB

Where it bites

SPOILER-SAFE BY DEFAULT

START25%HALFWAY75%CREDITS

15% · ~4hObscurity
the first time the game hands you an item that makes you worse
▲ 38
60% · ~20hLearning Curve
the second half of the game that begins after you think you have finished it
▲ 11
100% · ~60hReaction
the true final boss, which copies every enemy you have ever struggled with
▲ 28

Assists & accessibility

0/3 SOURCED

CHALLENGE RELIEF

Save anywhere [unsourced]A run can be suspended and resumed exactly where it stopped.
Difficulty modes [unsourced]Hard mode exists; there is nothing below Normal.

MOTOR & INPUT

Fully remappable controls [unsourced]

Claims marked unsourced have not been checked against a published accessibility review. Nothing here is inferred from genre — where we do not know, we say nothing.

What it is

A twin-stick roguelike set in a basement of randomly generated rooms, with over seven hundred items that combine, stack and occasionally cancel each other out.

Where to go from here

Argue with these asks

The same shape with the volume down, for when that one took it out of you.

Remnant II

2023 · Gunfire Games · ~30h

6.0PUNISHING

Aim is only half of it — the generation means the run you get may simply not contain the item you needed, and the game will not tell you that either.

UnratedOBS 7.3REA 5.9GRD 5.5

PUZ 3.4OBS 7.3

Valheim

2021 · Iron Gate Studios · ~60h

5.6STEEP

Death drops your gear where you died, and where you died is usually the swamp. The stamina economy keeps fights short and losing them expensive.

UnratedOBS 6.5PUN 5.6GRD 5.7

1.5

Terraria

2011 · Re-Logic · ~60h

6.3PUNISHING

Progression is gated behind bosses you are expected to build an arena for, and the game tells you almost none of that. Hardmode is a difficulty setting you trigger permanently, by hand.

UnratedOBS 8.2GRD 6.1CRV 6.2

The same shape with the volume down, for when that one took it out of you.

Comments

What the rules are

Nothing here yet. The first comment on a game page is usually the one people find.

Talk about this game

Open the full chat →What the rules are

Nobody has said anything yet. Someone has to be first.

Game metadata and images provided by IGDB. Cover art and screenshots remain the property of their publishers.