Edmund McMillen – “that guy that made those games, said those things and was in that movie”, by his own description – has taken to Tumblr to answer some eternally burning questions, some of them about the future of The Binding of Isaac.
There’s no guarantee an Isaac 2 will ever happen – it would be McMillen’s first ever direct sequel if it did. But the Super Meat Boy designer already knows what he’d change about his beloved dungeon crawler.
A “big flaw” of the otherwise procedurally-generated roguelike was that you had to fight the same series of bosses in each run, reckons McMillen. He’s managed to mitigate that stricture somewhat in Afterbirth, the chunk of Isaac DLC expected later this year – but isn’t wholly satisfied.
“I fix this a bit in the new game mode,” wrote the designer. “But its something ill try to design around if/when we do isaac 2.
“I also feel like other elements of isaac could be more randomly generated, but i wont go into detail about what and how [to] fix it because again, its something id like to use in a sequel or totally new game.”
The other element of Isaac that McMillen isn’t entirely happy with is item distribution – which ideally he’d rebalance to grant players more choice in treasure and boss rooms. If he were to work on more DLC, he’d ask fans for more item ideas – those in Afterbirth turned out “perfect”.
McMillen certainly isn’t sick of working on the series. Development on both Rebirth and Afterbirth has been “effortless” thanks to a well-tuned team.
“Its a game that can easily be expanded upon,” he said of Isaac. “its also the game that i feel tells the best story ive written and i really like the character design / visual themes in it.”
What would you want from a Binding of Isaac sequel? Other than body horror, obv?