The PlayStation 4 release of The Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth has been delayed until an unspecified date in 2016.
A little over a year ago on November 4, 2014, fans of Edmund McMillen had great cause to rejoice. It was on this day that The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth, the completely overhauled, revamped, and remade version of the flash game The Binding of Isaac, was released for PlayStation 4 as well as most major computer operating systems.
The game has extremely dark subject matter covering such issues as child abuse and neglect, religious delusions, drug abuse, mental illness, depression, murder, and suicide.
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The game looks almost identical to a 2D Zelda game but covered with the most horrible materials, such as bile, vomit, blood, and feces. There are literally piles of (human?) dung everywhere. As in your typical top down dungeon crawling game your objective is to clear the dungeon by making your way past hordes of monsters and to the final boss. It is the same in The Binding of Isaac, however the monsters are horrible, fetid things with names such as Fistula and Teratoma or with the appearance of a gigantic parasitic worm. The creatures and environments in this game are a rancid and, some might say, nuanced look at body horror.
The items are given a similar twist. There is no one to explain what items do, aside from some ancient vague pictographic hieroglyphs at the very beginning of each run. So as you make your way through each unknowable (literally because each level is procedurally generated) gargantuan structure you must find out through trial and error, which power ups help you and hurt you, which of these literally hundreds of unique tools will make your projectile attack (tears) stronger and which will, for example, destroy your mini-map.
The game changes and constantly keeps you on your toes. With each new dungeon, achievement, and character unlock you will be presented with evermore unexpected and bewildering challenges to the point that many of the more hardcore players have put hundreds of hours into The Binding of Isaac.
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Players were extremely excited in February of this year when it was announced that The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth would be getting a massive expansion entitled The Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth. This expansion comes with 8 new bosses, 25 or more new enemies, over 120 new items, a new playable character, alternate chapters and an expanded end game in addition to an entirely new game mode, Greed Mode, which completely alters the way the game is played. According to McMillen, The Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth will add over 100 hours to the base game experience. For a full rundown of everything in the expansion see here.
The Binding of Isaac: Afterbirth was released for most major computer operating systems on October 30. The PS4 version, which was originally supposed to release more or less alongside its computer counterparts, has been delayed for reasons unknown. While there is no longer an official confirmed release date, the developers are aiming for a February release.
Are you a loyal McMillenite? Do you enjoy The Binding of Isaac? Are you longingly awaiting the expansions release? Tell us about it in the comments.
A quick update in the postscript; now that February has come and gone with not only Afterbirth failing to appear on PS4 but with no official news about the state of the project I figured I would do just a little bit of digging. Here is what I found:
When you ask @tyronerodriguez about afterbirth on ps4 and he be like pic.twitter.com/yfx5wtCo3w
— Edmund McMillen (@edmundmcmillen) February 5, 2016
While that is not the sort of post Isaac fans are looking for don’t fret. Don’t get to excited either, but I was able to find a more recent post that instills me with a little more hope. Still no official confirmation, but at this point we should be happy that the developers are still talking about the expansion, if just on occasion.
What a coincidence, I’m playing Afterbirth on PS4, too… @UnboxBeast pic.twitter.com/Z8VXNwQ16a
— Tyrone Rodriguez (@tyronerodriguez) February 29, 2016
