---
title: "The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth: Complete Guide (through Repentance+)"
game: "The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth"
game_url: "https://qna.gg/games/the-binding-of-isaac-rebirth"
author: "Qloud"
author_url: "https://qna.gg/players/Qloud"
topics: ["Co-op"]
summary: "Everything you need to go from your first Basement run to The Beast: how the DLCs stack, the unlock order, items and rooms worth knowing, character notes, and how online co-op in Repentance+ works. Researched September…"
url: "https://qna.gg/g/the-binding-of-isaac-rebirth-complete-guide-through-repentan-599de6f5"
published: "2026-09-27T16:25:38.606Z"
updated: "2026-09-27T16:25:38.606Z"
source: "QnA.GG"
---

# The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth: Complete Guide (through Repentance+)

Everything you need to go from your first Basement run to The Beast: how the DLCs stack, the unlock order, items and rooms worth knowing, character notes, and how online co-op in Repentance+ works.

*Researched September 2026 — current as of Repentance+ patch 1.9.7.16/1.9.7.17 (crossplay beta). Live games change; check the linked sources if something differs.*

## Quick Start

1. **Know what you own.** The base game is *Rebirth*. Content stacks: Rebirth, then Afterbirth, Afterbirth+, Repentance, and Repentance+ (a free add-on for Repentance owners, released November 18, 2024). Each DLC needs the previous ones. If you are buying today, get everything — Repentance is the definitive version.
2. **Your first goal is Mom.** Mom is the boss of the Depths (chapter 3). Beating her unlocks a big chunk of the game, including the Womb, and — since patch 1.9.7.13 (September 2025) — in-game item descriptions.
3. **Explore every floor fully early on.** Items, keys, bombs and coins come from rooms and chests. Speed matters later; early on, resources win runs.
4. **Always check the Item Room (gold crown icon) and Shop (coin icon).** Item Rooms on the earliest floors are open; on later floors they usually need a key, so don't spend your last one carelessly.
5. **Bomb suspicious walls.** Secret Rooms sit next to several rooms at once; Super Secret Rooms touch only one room. Both usually hold items or money.
6. **Take Devil Deals if you can afford them.** After beating a floor's boss without taking red-heart damage, a Devil or Angel Room door may appear. Devil items cost heart containers (or soul hearts), but many are run-winning.
7. **Mom's Heart is where the real game starts.** Kill it repeatedly — each kill advances unlocks. The 10th kill unlocks the Blue Womb; the 11th unlocks It Lives!.
8. **Hold Tab** to see the map, and pause to see collected items. With descriptions unlocked, you can read what an item does before committing.
9. **Dying is normal.** Isaac is a roguelike: every run unlocks something, and progression is about unlocks and knowledge, not stat carryover.

## Controls (Keyboard Defaults)

| Action | Key |
|---|---|
| Move | W A S D |
| Shoot | Arrow keys |
| Place bomb | E |
| Use active item | Space |
| Use card / pill | Q |
| Drop / swap trinket, pocket item | Hold Ctrl |
| Map | Tab (hold) |
| Restart run | Hold R |

Controller support is built in. Shooting direction is independent of movement — strafing while firing is the core skill of the game.

## Core Systems

### Stats

| Stat | What it does |
|---|---|
| Damage | Tear damage. Multiplicative items (e.g. Polyphemus, Cricket's Head, Sacred Heart) are the big spikes. |
| Tears | Fire rate. Often the most impactful stat early. |
| Range | How far tears travel. |
| Shot Speed | Tear velocity. |
| Speed | Movement speed. |
| Luck | Boosts proc chances on items like Tough Love, Holy Light, and many trinkets. |

### Health

- **Red hearts** — heart containers, healed by red heart pickups.
- **Soul hearts (blue)** — temporary; lost when damaged. Taking soul-heart damage does not ruin Devil Deal chance the way red damage does.
- **Black hearts** — like soul hearts, but deal damage to the room when lost.
- **Bone, rotten, golden, eternal, and broken hearts** — Afterbirth/Repentance additions with special rules. Broken hearts permanently occupy health slots for the run.

### Pickups and consumables

Coins, bombs, and keys are the economy. Cards, runes, and pills go in your pocket slot (Q). Trinkets are passive and swappable. Pills are unidentified until used — a bad pill (e.g. health or tears down) can hurt, so pop them when you can afford the risk.

### Rooms worth knowing

| Room | Icon / sign | What's inside |
|---|---|---|
| Item Room (Treasure) | Crown | One free item (sometimes a choice) |
| Shop | Coin | Items, pickups; upgrades as you donate to the Donation Machine |
| Boss Room | Skull | Floor boss + item |
| Devil / Angel Room | Appears after boss | Paid (devil) or free (angel) items |
| Secret / Super Secret | Hidden | Coins, items |
| Curse Room | Spiked door | Costs health to enter; pickups or items |
| Sacrifice Room | Spikes | Take damage for escalating rewards |
| Arcade | Dice icon | Slot machines, beggars, Blood Donation machine |
| Library | Book icon | Book items (costs a key) |
| Challenge Room | Boss-style door | Wave fight for an item (full health needed) |
| Planetarium | Repentance | Rare planet/star items; more likely if you skip Item Rooms |
| Ultra Secret Room | Repentance | Reached via the Red Key/Cracked Key; high-value items |

## Progression: The Unlock Path

The game drip-feeds its chapters and endings. This is the rough order most players follow.

| Step | Target | How / what it unlocks |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | **Mom** (Depths / Necropolis) | Opens the Womb and many items; enables item descriptions |
| 2 | **Mom's Heart** (Womb / Utero) | Repeated kills unlock new content each time |
| 3 | **Satan** (Sheol) or **Isaac** (Cathedral) | Reached after Mom's Heart / It Lives! (down = Sheol, up = Cathedral) |
| 4 | **The Polaroid** / **The Negative** | Beat Isaac 5 times for The Polaroid; beat Satan 5 times for The Negative. Mom then drops one of them (they're mutually exclusive). |
| 5 | **???** (Chest) and **The Lamb** (Dark Room) | Carry The Polaroid past Isaac into the Chest, or The Negative past Satan into the Dark Room |
| 6 | **Mega Satan** | Collect both Key Pieces (from Angel Room statues) to open the big door at the start of the Chest/Dark Room |
| 7 | **Hush** (Blue Womb) | Unlocked after 10 Mom's Heart kills; the Blue Womb entrance only appears if you kill Mom's Heart / It Lives! within 30 minutes |
| 8 | **Delirium** (The Void) | After beating Hush, a Void portal can appear after later final bosses. In Repentance+, once The Void is unlocked the portal is guaranteed after The Lamb, ???, and Mega Satan (and after Mother once you've seen that ending). |
| 9 | **Alternate path** | Beat Hush 3 times ("A Secret Exit") to open the Repentance alt floors: Downpour/Dross, Mines/Ashpit, Mausoleum/Gehenna, then Corpse |
| 10 | **Mother** (Corpse) | Collect both knife pieces on the alt path — Knife Piece 1 from Downpour/Dross (the mirror, entered as a ghost), Knife Piece 2 from Mines/Ashpit (a button puzzle leading to an escape sequence). Beat Mom in Mausoleum/Gehenna II; a flesh door appears — stab it with the combined knife (a Sharp Key, Cracked Orb, or Soul of Cain also work), beat Mom's Heart inside, and the path continues to Corpse |
| 11 | **The Beast** (Home) | After you've beaten Mother once, a Strange Door appears in the starting room of Depths II (or Necropolis/Dank Depths). Open it with The Polaroid or The Negative (or a Sharp Key, Cracked Orb, etc.) to reach a special Mausoleum/Gehenna II whose boss room holds Dad's Note, which starts the Ascent back up to Home |
| 12 | **Ultra Greed** | Separate Greed Mode (and harder Greedier Mode) — wave-based shop runs |

### Characters and tainted characters

You start with Isaac. Characters unlock through achievements (e.g. Magdalene for having 7 or more red heart containers, Cain for holding 55 coins). Repentance adds **tainted** versions of every character, unlocked by using the Red Key/Cracked Key on the Home closet with that character after the Home floor is reached.

| Character | Style | Beginner rating |
|---|---|---|
| Isaac | Balanced; later starts with The D6 | Great once D6 is unlocked |
| Magdalene | Tanky, slow; Yum Heart | Very easy |
| Cain | Luck, Lucky Foot; one eye | Easy |
| Judas | Glass cannon; Book of Belial | Medium |
| ??? (Blue Baby) | Soul hearts only | Medium |
| Eve | Rage when low on health | Medium |
| Samson | Damage builds up while taking hits | Medium |
| Azazel | Short-range Brimstone, flight | Easy and very strong |
| Lazarus | Revives once | Medium |
| Eden | Random stats and items | Variety |
| The Lost | One hit and you die, flight, spectral | Hard (and unlocks huge items) |
| Lilith, Keeper, Apollyon, The Forgotten, Bethany, Jacob & Esau | Unique mechanics | Medium to hard |

Tip: Azazel and Magdalene are the easiest ways to farm completion marks early. The Lost is the notorious challenge — his completion marks unlock many of the game's best items, like Godhead.

## Items: What to Grab

There are over 700 collectibles, so learn patterns rather than lists.

**Almost always take:** Sacred Heart, Brimstone, Godhead, Polyphemus, Cricket's Head, Magic Mushroom, Mom's Knife, Tech X, Holy Mantle, The D6, Spirit Sword, Cricket's Body, Pentagram, and most damage multipliers.

**Be careful with:** Soy Milk, Ipecac (can hurt you with some combos), Anemic, Mom's Wig, and anything with a tears-down trade-off if you already have low fire rate. Some items are only bad in specific synergies.

**Transformations** trigger when you collect three items from a set, e.g. Guppy (infinite flies), Beelzebub (Lord of the Flies), Seraphim, Leviathan, Bookworm, Spun, Conjoined. Repentance+ adds the Necromancer transformation (an empowered Necronomicon usable 10 times per floor without recharging).

**Active items** charge by clearing rooms. Batteries (and The Battery) add charges. The D6 rerolls pedestal items — use it on weak items and after Devil Deals.

## Repentance+ and Online Co-op

- **Price and requirements:** Repentance+ was a free DLC for Repentance owners on Steam.
- **Online modes:** Quick Match, Public Match, and Friend Match lobbies, plus online Daily Runs, an emote wheel and text chat. A Revive Machine lets downed players come back in online runs.
- **Chat moderation:** type `/mute [username]` and `/unmute [username]` in text chat (added April 2026).
- **Crossplay (beta, April 2026):** enable it in `OPTIONS.INI` in `Documents\My Games\Binding of Isaac Repentance+`. The last line `EosCrossplay=` sets 0–1 (off), 2 (Steam + Epic public lobbies), or 3 (crossplay + Epic account linking for Epic friends lists and invites).
- **Balance:** 50+ items were rebalanced in Repentance+, and patch 1.9.7.13 (September 10, 2025) added item descriptions and upgraded effects for every trinket — golden trinkets and Mom's Box now actually do something extra for all of them.
- **Save warning:** the wiki notes online co-op is still flagged as beta and has had save-corruption reports. Back up your save folder before playing online.
- **Consoles:** as of July 2026 Edmund McMillen confirmed Repentance+ is coming to current consoles, with no date yet, and that a small PC update may land by the end of 2026.

## Common Mistakes to Avoid

- **Skipping Devil Deals out of fear.** Red heart containers are a resource. Trading two containers for Brimstone is usually correct.
- **Taking red-heart damage before the boss.** That lowers the Devil/Angel chance. Soul-heart damage is fine.
- **Ignoring the timer.** Blue Womb requires Mom's Heart in under 30 minutes; Boss Rush (after Mom) requires beating Mom within 20 minutes.
- **Using the D6 on good items.** Reroll only what you don't want.
- **Wasting bombs on rocks.** Save them for secret rooms, tinted rocks (the ones with an X mark), and key-locked alternatives.
- **Picking up both The Polaroid and The Negative.** You can only carry one — choose based on whether you're going to Chest (???) or Dark Room (The Lamb).
- **Playing The Lost too early.** Unlock easy items first so your item pool is stronger.

## Advanced Tips

- **Angel vs Devil rooms:** once you take a Devil Deal, Angel Rooms stop appearing for that run (unless an item changes that). Plan which pool you want before the first deal.
- **Angel statues:** bombing the statue in an Angel Room starts a fight with an angel who drops a Key Piece — you need both for Mega Satan.
- **Planetariums** become more likely the more Item Rooms you skip. They're one of the strongest pools in Repentance.
- **Shop upgrades:** donating coins to the Donation Machine permanently upgrades shops; the Greed Donation Machine does the same for Greed Mode unlocks.
- **Seeds:** the pause screen shows the seed. Some seeds disable achievements; special "easter egg" seeds change visuals or rules.
- **Pill identification:** PHD makes all pills positive and identified. False PHD makes them negative (but with stat bonuses).
- **Curse of the Lost / Labyrinth / Darkness** are floor curses — the Black Candle blocks them.
- **Victory Lap** exists after beating The Lamb: you restart at the Basement with your items for a score run.
- **Mods:** the Repentance API supports Steam Workshop mods. Popular QoL mods like External Item Descriptions still exist, but the built-in descriptions now cover the basics. Mods disable achievements while enabled.

## FAQ

**What order should I buy/play the DLCs?**
All of them stack onto one game. Buy Rebirth plus Afterbirth, Afterbirth+, and Repentance (Repentance+ is free on top). You play them all at once — there's no separate campaign.

**How do I unlock the Isaac and Satan fights?**
Beat Mom's Heart (It Lives! after 11 kills) — afterward you'll get a trapdoor or light beam leading to Sheol (Satan) or Cathedral (Isaac).

**How do I get to The Void / Delirium?**
Beat Hush first. After that, a Void portal can appear in the boss room after later final bosses. In Repentance+ it is guaranteed after The Lamb, ???, and Mega Satan once The Void is unlocked.

**How do I reach the Repentance alt path?**
Defeat Hush three times to unlock "A Secret Exit". Afterwards, a special door can appear in boss rooms leading into the alt chapters (opening it costs a key, bombs, or health depending on the chapter).

**What is the true ending?**
The Beast at Home (Ending 22) is the story ending of Repentance, reached via Dad's Note and the Ascent.

**Does online co-op work with Epic players?**
Yes, in beta — set `EosCrossplay=2` or `3` in `OPTIONS.INI` (see above).

**Is The Binding of Isaac getting more updates?**
As of the July 2026 Steam post, Edmund said a small update is in the works, possibly by the end of 2026. Console Repentance+ is confirmed without a date.

## Sources

- [Steam news: Bonus Discounts? WTF!? (July 10, 2026)](https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/250900)
- [Steam news: Repentance Online 1.9.7.16 (April 11, 2026)](https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/250900)
- [Steam news: Internal Item Descriptions, patch 1.9.7.13 (September 10, 2025)](https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/250900)
- [Binding of Isaac Wiki (wiki.gg): Repentance+](https://bindingofisaacrebirth.wiki.gg/wiki/The_Binding_of_Isaac:_Repentance%2B)
- [Binding of Isaac Wiki (wiki.gg): Endings](https://bindingofisaacrebirth.wiki.gg/wiki/Endings)
- [Binding of Isaac Wiki (wiki.gg): Blue Womb](https://bindingofisaacrebirth.wiki.gg/wiki/Blue_Womb)
- [Binding of Isaac Wiki (wiki.gg): The Polaroid](https://bindingofisaacrebirth.wiki.gg/wiki/The_Polaroid)
- [Binding of Isaac Wiki (wiki.gg): Sheol](https://bindingofisaacrebirth.wiki.gg/wiki/Sheol)
- [Binding of Isaac Wiki (wiki.gg): Corpse](https://bindingofisaacrebirth.wiki.gg/wiki/Corpse)
- [Binding of Isaac Wiki (wiki.gg): Dad's Note](https://bindingofisaacrebirth.wiki.gg/wiki/Dad%27s_Note)