The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth

One of the greatest things about gaming on PC is that you can do whatever you like with the games you own, and one of Steam's best perks is built in, easy support for creating and sharing user-made stuff via the Steam Workshop. With Workshop Collective, we're aiming to take a regular dive into the must-have community creations for some of your favorite, most enduring games and let you vote on which we'll be diving into next.

Today, we're starting with a big one. The OG king of action-roguelikes, The Binding Of Isaac: Rebirth! Plus its mostly-community-created must-have expansion Afterbirth, which is required for most major mods. At the time of writing, the complete game is at an all-time low of 90% off in the summer sale, and has hit new all-time high player counts. Not bad for a game that's been around since 2011, in its original incarnation.

Much as I love mods and the communities that make them, it's worth noting that unless you're very familiar with The Binding Of Isaac, you should get a hang of the game in its original, un-modded form first, or at most with just a handful of minor quality-of-life tweaks. As fun as overhauls like Fiend Folio below are, they're very different experiences.

Or you can just go nuts. I'm not your (or Isaac's) dad.

With that said... LET'S! GET! MODDING!

REPENTOGON: Isaac Script Extender - by Team REPENTOGON

Type: Under-the-hood Upgrades

As powerful as Isaac's mod support is, the game was just not designed to support some of the wilder dreams of the community. This magical slab of code vastly expands what the game is capable of, and has rapidly become the foundation for many new major mods. Well worth installing before anything else, and it shouldn't cause compatibility issues.

The only downside is that it takes some effort to install - more complex than just clicking the Subscribe button on the Workshop page, at least. Follow the setup video above (which also has Linux instructions for the Steam Deck/Steam Machine crowd) and you'll be good. Mods that require Repentogon are clearly labelled on the Workshop, so if you don't want to jump through hoops, you don't have to for most mods.

External Item Descriptions - by Wofsauge & fly_6

Type: Quality Of Life

There was a time, long ago, when you could memorize every useful item and its features. But between expansions, re-releases, mods and more, only the most obsessive of players will be able or willing to carve out the brain-space required for the game's massive database of loot - even lead developer Ed McMillen agrees. The solution is this must-have Quality Of Life mod.

Some purists may consider it cheating, but this mod tells you the properties of every item in the game and in almost every mod, meaning you'll never have to wrack your brain to figure out whether you should be grabbing the Rainbow Worm or the Tape Worm. Holding the Map button also let's you check the details on any items you've already collected. You can further customize it via the Mod Config Menu addon, too, plus having Repentogon installed further expands the mod's features.

Speaking of expanding features, if you want access to absolutely every piece of knowledge in the game at all times and don't want to alt-tab out, Encyclopedia (quick requires External Item Descriptions to fully function) gives you an in-game reference library.

GoodTrip - by tarako

Type: Quality Of Life

If you've ever played Enter The Gungeon or many other action-roguelikes, you'll probably be spoilt rotten by their fast-travel options, letting you casually warp around between rooms you've already cleared, so long as there's a safe path you could walk. This mod adds that time-saving feature to Isaac, accessed by either holding the Tab button and clicking on your mini-map, or holding down the map button (for other control setups) and using the directional inputs to pick which room to warp to.

It's another mod that could be considered cheating (especially in the case of speed-related challenges) if you squint at it hard enough, but it's okay, I'll let it slide this time. Go on, have a little teleporting, as a treat.

Sacrilege Soundtrack - by P-Wave

Type: Music replacement

While most will agree that The Binding Of Isaac has only improved over the years, the one point of contention is the soundtrack. The original version of the game was scored by Super Meat Boy composer Danny Baranowsky, and his synthy jams helped defined the game's tone. With the release of later expansions, the soundtrack was replaced with a new, darker, moodier set of tracks by Ridiculon that go heavier on the electric guitars. While still great music, something was definitely lost.

Sacrilege is a whole new soundtrack that aims to recapture that original Baranowsky sound, while filling in the blanks to cover all the new areas and bosses that later expansions added. It has quickly risen to become one of the community's most-downloaded mods, and you can listen to it now in the video above. While not explicitly required, the workshop page does recommend having Repentogon installed too, just in case.

Epiphany - by The Epiphany Team

Type: New playable characters

Some mods are here for the long haul. When it is complete, the team behind Epiphany aim to add a massive seventeen new playable characters to the game - 'Tarnished' variants of the existing cast with new sprites and mechanics to master that transform them even further than their existing Tainted forms. Currently, the mod is a little over halfway complete, with nine of them implemented, each with a full set of eight unlocks each.

Even half done, this is one of the best mods around. Each character puts a fresh spin on the action. Tarnished Cain doesn't cry, and instead smacks people with a sack containing the items you've collected. Tarnished Eden is a glitchy nightmare, rerolling everything with every new room and corrupting enemies on touch. This mod is designed to feel as much like a hidden, secret feature of the game as possible, so these new characters all have mysterious unlock conditions.

Last Judgment + Part 2 - by NotYourSagittarius, Snake Block & team

Type: Restored cut content

Also requiring Repentogon, but designed to be compatible with many existing major mods (including Fiend Folio), Last Judgment scrapes up the scraps and stubs left on the cutting room floor after Isaac's final expansion, Repentance. The first part of this mod makes a few subtle tweaks and improvements to the game, including re-drawing many of the game's older enemy and boss sprites to better match the style of later expansions.

Most significantly, the second part adds (among other things) an entire new floor to the game; Mortis. A grey and hollow version of the Corpse, featuring all new music, enemies bosses, hazards and more. It's all designed to fit seamlessly into the game, as it just needed a little dusting off before it could be added back into the game.

THE FUTURE - by J.D, Cometz, hippocrunchy & team

Type: New floor

Another new region to explore that, for once, DOESN'T need Repentogon to function. This one's inspired by Edmund McMillen & Tyler Glaiel's lesser-known precision platformer, The End Is Nigh (which I highly recommend and has its own treasure trove of Workshop goodies too) along with a huge new set of 30+ enemies to tussle with in the new area, as well as some fun new NPCs to meet.

This mod really goes above and beyond, making this new area feel like you've fallen into another game. Accessible via a friendly(?) face in the Caves and Mines zones, once you've fallen into THE FUTURE you'll encounter a whole new set of room gimmicks and zone mechanics before you end up returning back to Isaac's regular misadventures.

Community Remix - by Team Community Remix

Type: General expansion

One of the first expansion-style mods to leverage Repentogon's features, but also this one has long roots, dating back to a mod for the original Flash-based version of the game. While mostly vanilla in style, it adds a significant slab of content, including a hundred new items (I especially like How To Jump 2.0, which allows you to hop around, stomp on enemies to deal damage, and bunny-hop repeatedly to build inertia), a whole new set of beggars with their own gimmicks, new transformation forms and a fistful of new enemy types.

It also adds four new playable characters, each with an unlockable Tainted variant, plus several new play-modes including an even harder difficulty and the all-new endless Gluttony Mode, which lets you delve for as long as you please with the option to feed Ultra Gluttony (who appears at the start of every floor) your precious food items to dial down the difficulty should it ramp up too far to be comfortable.

Sheriff: Most Wanted - by catinsurance & team

Type: New playable character

A whole new way to play, and another that requires Repentogon installed first, and comes in both regular and Tainted forms. Armed with a revolver, a hat and a poncho (clothes, on my Isaac!?), this blazer of dusty trails has no more tears to shed. So, anyway, he started blasting...

The Sheriff's gun hits hard, but has limited ammo. They'll reload (and gain additional ammo capacity) at a rate based on your Tears stat, but you definitely have to manage when to be aggressive or evasive here. The Sheriff also comes with a whole set of wild west-themed items (usable by any character), including a holster that lets them switch freely between their currently equipped main weapon and a bullwhip which knocks enemies back. Yee and/or haw, pardner.

Fiend Folio: Reheated - Team Folio

Type: Massive overhaul

For those who've explored every last corner of the basement and are after something new, Fiend Folio: Reheated is a whole new world of pain. Probably the single biggest community project yet. It could pass for a commercial expansion, featuring hundreds of new enemies, dozens of bosses (including one that turns the game into a genuine horror game for a while), mountains of new items and even a complete makeover. Every single floor in the game now has its own unique set of tiles and sprites, its own enemy types and a few new gimmicks. There's so much of it, there's a huge wiki dedicated to tracking all of its content.

The tradeoff for this absurd ambition is that this is a demanding mod and does significantly increase the game's hardware requirements. If you're on a decent laptop or better, you shouldn't notice much difference but if you're playing on Steam Deck, expect some slowdown. Some players also consider Fiend Folio to be a step too far, changing the game's formula too much. While I disagree, if you feel that the game's core balance and experience are sacred, this might not be the mod for you.

On top of all that, there's another major update to in the works and due out on August 5th - Fiend Folio: Reloaded - which has been teased since May 2023 and debuted a release date trailer recently. While the current edition of Fiend Folio doesn't need it, Reloaded will require Repentogon to function. Fiend Folio is popular enough that many other mods have updated with compatibility patches so they can play nice with each other, so keep an eye on Workshop descriptions and mix 'em up for a deadly cocktail.

With a staggering 23,000+ mods available on Steam alone (and more released every day), this is just the finest shaving of yellow snow from the enormous cursed iceberg that is The Binding of Isaac, but we think it'll be enough to get you started and primed to dig deeper. Until next time - and on that note, it's time for you to make your choice on which bustling community we'll be raiding for cool free stuff next: