Isaac: Afterbirth+ unwraps new character in final Booster
SHHH it's a secret
The fifth and final free 'Booster Pack' content update has arrived for The Binding Of Isaac: Rebirth's Afterbirth+ expansion, bringing a new secret character, new items, new enemies, new room layouts, and heaps more to the roguelikelike cry 'em up. The update fixes a load of longstanding glitches and irritants in Isaac too, bringing back a feeling of polish to a game which has been a bit scrappy since Afterbirth+ in particular. I'm very keen to dive in and check everything out, and especially to unlock the new character.
First, the Booster basics. The pack adds eight new items based on player-made mods, ranging from an altar to sacrifice familiars in exchange for Devil items to bouncing tears that skip along the ground. It also rolls in the Real Cone Head Fix mod, which started out as a fix for one graphics glitch but grew to correct so very many. Then there are five new enemies, one new boss, 64 new achievements (mostly from Isaac's Switch version), and 817 new room layouts. And... one new secret character.
As with The Lost, Isaac's other secret unlockable character, this new one was meant to be discovered by players noticing odd things, investigating, putting their heads together, and coming up with a solution together. As with The Lost, some folks just dug in the game's data files to figure out how to unlock it.
"You cheaters have no sense of adventure!" Isaac head honcho Edmund McMillen tweeted last night. "Just play the game and explore!"
The new character is The Forgotten, who's actually two characters in one, switched between with the press of a button. I'll not say more, to preserve some of the mystery, but adventure-haters can see this Reddit post for more information and instructions on how to unlock it. Or this video shows the Forgotten in action. But promise not to look, okay?
The update also fixes a load of longstanding niggling irritants that don't ruin the game but raise grumbles: stopping the lashing variant of the Nerving Ending enemy from spawning next to doors and automatically hitting Isaac when he enters the room; spikes in pressure plate rooms will start and stay lowered when you re-enter the room, so no more accidental spikings; making Angry Fly marginally less useless; making Devil Deals take heart containers if you only have one empty one, rather than charging Spirit Hearts; making Glowing Hourglass good again by removing the five-use limit; making Krampus and the Fallen's Brimstone attacks line up with their animations; when Chub swallows bombs they will now do any extra bomb effects too; Haemolacria can become less horrifyingly slow; the hideous shot charge progress bar is replaced with a nice new little animation.
Ach, there's so much more, go dive into the patch notes.
Good. Good stuff. Good update. Ta.
I'm still playing Isaac every day, and starting to break into the top 100 of Daily Challenges. It's my cup of gaming tea, familiar and soothing. As I finish this post now, I am very aware that the next daily run begins in 14 minutes. I'd best go put the kettle on.