The Binding of Isaac Rebirth is a classic rogue-like game with bullet hell elements. The gameplay is solid, and the story bizarre and deeply depressing. With multiple add-ons and expansions, it’s become a large game that requires a great level of skill and tact to beat.
Even more stunning is the level of replayability with multiple character and item unlocks that, when combined with procedurally generated levels, enemies, and even randomized bosses, makes no two games the same. With all this randomization, it can be hard to achieve all twenty endings of the game, but, for the completionists out there, here’s a guide on how to do precisely that. Or, for those without the time, the gist of what happens in each ending!
Updated June 13th, 2021 by Ben Baker: With the recent release of Repentance, The Binding Of Isaac now has two more endings and a bunch of rewards and unlocks. The already mammoth game has even more replayability as players dive in to find out what has changed. To help those descending back into the horrors of Isaac's mind, here are the additional endings and some of the perks that come with each ending.
23 Epilogue Ending
This ending is fairly basic to achieve, simply defeat Mom and players will earn this misleading ending. Isaac imagines his mother cornering him with a knife ready to sacrifice him to the voices in her head when The Bible falls from the shelf and kills her.
Unfortunately for Isaac, this turned out to be an imaginative story all in his head, and his mother opens the door behind him to reveal a darker fate for the hero.
22 Ending 1 – Eden
After defeating Mother’s Heart, Isaac falls into a mysterious chest that locks him inside. After a commotion, he breaks free of the chest in an explosion of light as the character Eden with white hair that changes styles and bright glowing yellow eyes.
Getting this ending will unlock the playable character Eden. The player must have an Eden tokens to play as this character which are earned by defeating various bosses.
21 Ending 2 – Rubber Cement
Again, after defeating Mother’s Heart, Isaac finds a bottle of rubber cement inside the mysterious chest. For whatever reason, he slathers it on his eyes, turning them pasty white while gluing his eyelids open.
Getting this ending unlocks Rubber Cement as a passive item that can be found. It essentially causes tears to bounce off all objects potentially striking enemies more than once.
20 Ending 3 – Noose
Another ending achieved after defeating Mother’s Heart, Isaac encounters the mysterious chest again and finds a length of rope inside. The player is then treated to one of the darkest endings available in the game. That's really saying something, as this game can be particularly dreary in places.
This ending will unlock the passive item Transcendence. This enables Isaac to permanently fly.
19 Ending 4 – Wire Coat Hanger
A randomized ending after beating Mother’s Heart, Isaac opens the mysterious chest to find a Wire Coat Hanger which he promptly shoves through his head.
This ending will unlock the Wire Coat Hanger passive item. This boosts tear attack strength by .7 when picked up.
18 Ending 5 – Everything Is Terrible
After defeating Mother’s Heart, Isaac opens the mysterious chest to be assaulted by his mother’s large arm. After punching him, the arm grabs him and yanks him into the chest as Mother cackles somewhere out of sight.
This unlocks the mode Everything Is Terrible which makes the game significantly more challenging.
17 Ending 6 – Ipecac
Another easy ending to achieve by defeating Mother’s Heart, Isaac opens the chest to find something out of view. He steps away from the chest and becomes ill before turning to vomit into the chest, causing an explosion.
This ending will unlock the passive item Ipecac. Ipecac replaces tears with projectiles that are explosive and poisonous.
16 Ending 7 – Experimental Treatment
One of the more disturbing endings after beating Mother’s Heart, Isaac finds a yellow syringe in the mysterious chest and presumably injects himself with it. Later Isaac is shown incredibly deformed, slumped on the ground sporting a cartoonishly distorted face.
This ending introduces the passive item Experimental Treatment to the game. When used it will randomly increase and decrease Isaac's stats.
15 Ending 8 – Quarter
Beating Mother’s Heart yields this semi-happy ending where Isaac finds a Quarter in the mysterious chest with no disturbing or dark side effects. It's considered the happiest possible ending in the game.
With this ending players will have access to A Quarter. When found in the game it immediately gives Isaac 25 cents.
14 Ending 9 – Dr. Fetus
Another ending resulting from the destruction of Mother’s Heart, Isaac encounters the mysterious chest and finds a glass jar with a fetus inside. The player then sees Isaac wearing a top hat and monocle, supposedly having become Dr. Fetus. This ending is a reference to Super Meat Boy, another of indie game developer Edmund McMillen's creations.
If players get this ending it will unlock the passive item Dr. Fetus. Dr. Fetus replaces tears with bombs that have a very short detonation time and deal three times the damage of a tear.
13 Ending 10 - ???
This dark ending is a result of defeating Mother’s Heart. Here Isaac opens the mysterious chest to find the unsettling ??? character inside, a young boy with blue skin and crossed out eyes signifying that he’s dead. The body lifts up and startles Isaac, who plummets into a spiraling void.
This ending will unlock the playable character ??? as known as Blue Baby. ??? can only have Soul Hearts or Black Hearts and starts with the item The Poop.
12 Ending 11 – It Lives
This weird ending is the last one that can be achieved after defeating Mother’s Heart. Isaac opens the mysterious chest and is surprised by what’s inside, presumably nothing. Then suddenly It Lives, a variation of Mother’s Heart with an eerie face embedded in the organ, pops up behind him and growls.
This ending unlocks It Lives as a boss, which makes other endings much easier to achieve, but is a harder boss to kill.
11 Ending 12 – Different Lives
This ending requires the player to beat Satan on the final floor Sheol which is unlocked in one of four ways; a trapdoor will randomly spawn to Sheol after a player defeats Mother’s Heart, if the player has unlocked It Lives the trapdoor will always spawn, the item We Need To Go Deeper can be used on the Womb II level to open a trapdoor, and the Joker can be used in Womb II to create a Devil Deal room that has a trapdoor leading to Sheol.
Upon opening the mysterious chest, Isaac rapidly changes into the different characters. After going through them all, he returns to normal in his own room and clambers inside the chest.
Depending on which character the player is using when defeating Satan will unlock different items. Here is a list:
- Isaac - Mom's Knife
- Maggy - The Guardian Angel
- Judas - The Monster Manual
- Cain - The Bomb Bag
- Eve - The Demon Baby
- ??? - Forget Me Now
- Samson - Blood Rights
10 Ending 13 – Evil Within
To achieve this eerie ending, players must defeat the boss Isaac, a crying version of the main character found on the Cathedral floor. To get to the Cathedral, player’s must randomly spawn an Angel Room after defeating Mother’s Heart or get a guaranteed doorway after defeating It Lives.
Isaac is seen reading a Bible before facing a mirror version of himself that is black skinned with red eyes, symbolic of the wickedness he feels is inside him.
There are a staggering number of things to unlock via this ending. It depends on which character is used, how many times Isaac is defeated, which other bosses have been defeated, and varying combinations thereof. It would honestly take a guide all its own.
9 Ending 14 – Pictures Tell A Thousand Words
This ending requires the players to beat The Chest level, which is accessible via three different methods. The first requires the player to touch the chest left behind by the boss Isaac while The Polaroid item is equipped, the other is to use the telepills on the Cathedral floor to enter the I AM ERROR room, and the final method can be found by entering a Black Market on the Cathedral floor and walking into the beam of light found there.
This ending shows a series of pictures depicting a happy family before the dad is seen leaving, the mother goes insane, and Isaac succumbs to the evil inside him.
Completing this ending normally will unlock the Angels minibosses. Getting this ending without taking any damage will unlock Dead Boy.
8 Ending 15 – Missing
Beating the Dark Room yields this ending, and there’s a number of ways to access it. Player’s can beat Satan five times, then touch his chest while holding The Negative item. They can also get to it through the I AM ERROR room, by killing Uriel and Gabriel and then using a sacrifice room, or by entering a trapdoor inside a Black Market.
The cutscene shows a missing poster for Isaac with his mother searching for him in the background.
This ending unlocks the Missing Poster Trinket. It's not one of the most useful trinkets out there, but it's something to survive the nightmares.
7 Ending 16 – The Demon Takes Over
This ending requires the player to defeat Mega Satan, which has some requirements to even spawn. The play must have defeated either ??? or the Lamb and collect all key pieces or have Dad’s Key. Doing this opens the Golden Key door where stepping on a pentagram spawns Mega Satan.
This ending shows Isaac curled up in the chest breathing heavily as he’s slowly taken over by a smiling demon.
Similar to defeating Isaac there are a massive number of things to unlock by defeating the Mega Satan as different characters. It also changes based on which DLC are active during the playthrough.
6 Ending 17 – Purgatory
To unlock this ending, players must defeat the boss Hush found in the Blue Womb that is accessible only after defeating Mother’s Heart for the 10th time, which will happen naturally given how many times Mother’s Heart must be defeated to unlock other endings.
This ending is similar to Ending 15 in that it starts with the missing poster. However, instead of fading to black, we see Isaac’s mother finding his dusty remains in the chest. It then cuts to an empty world with Isaac appearing out of a red chest before a dark winged figure appears behind him.
Once again the things unlocked with this ending depend on the character used and which DLCs are active.
5 Ending 18 – Greed
To get this ending, the player must be playing Greed Mode which alters the game in varying ways. Player’s must defeat the last boss known as Ultra Greed.
In this cutscene, Isaac is shown to have been trapped in a cave after the entrance is caved in. Later, his corpse is seen in the same position as the Shopkeeper before suddenly smiling.
Defeating Ultra Greed will unlock various items depending on which of the dozens of character options are used.
4 Ending 19 – Greedier
This ending requires the player to beat the game first on Greed Mode and then the subsequent Greedier Mode which makes the game much harder than it previously was.
The cutscene is identical to Ending 18 with the notable exception that, after the Shopkeeper corpse smiles, his head falls off, and his neck spews out a mass of flies.
There are even more unlocks in The Greedier ending than Greed ending.