The Binding of Isaac might be a cult favourite on Steam, but so far the recently released expansion Afterbirth+ is most certainly not.
Released last week, Afterbirth+ is the latest expansion to the roguelike action classic The Binding of Isaac. Isaac has been one of the highest rated games on Steam for years, thanks to its challenging nature, replayability, mechanics, level design, and music.
And that’s one of the common themes cited in the thousands of negative reviews for Afterbirth+ so far. With a 52% rating from almost 3,100 reviews, users have panned the expansion for spoiling some of the original mechanics, uninspiring enemies, a lack of fresh assets and content, broken mod support, derivative bosses, unfair level design and a new character that is weaker than the original Isaac.
Critics also cited a post from creator Edmund McMillen said on the game’s official page that he “personally scraped the barrel when it comes to item design”.
A patch was issued late last week to correct some of the more severe glitches, although some noted the expansion is still causing the base game to crash to desktop.
Here’s what people are saying:
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Comments
10 responses to “The Binding Of Isaac Afterbirth+, As Told By Steam Reviews”
Hey @alexwalker check out this sentence
A shame this hasn’t gone well. I haven’t played since the base game and was considering whether to get back into it.
Then get back into it. Don’t believe the comments shown above. The same thing happened when Afterbirth was released…the reddit back then was one of the worst toxic cesspools I’ve seen.
It’s just the same thing in their release loop – DLC goes out with some minor issues – community explodes, complaining – patch goes out within 1 week, fixes things – community steadily gets over their problems and realize its a good game again.
Yeah, my bad. Was originally gonna start the next paragraph with that and then hit update and had to run into a meeting and *sigh*. Anyway, fixed now, cheers mate.
Thanks! Don’t want to come across as petty – completely understand how this happens!
Oh fuck no, I didn’t take it like that at all. It’s always great to get the heads up, because then I can fix it.
Eh, don’t listen to the reviews. It’s the same thing that happened when Afterbirth released. Community exploded over a few minor issues, decided it wasn’t good enough and didn’t want to give Edmund a chance to fix them. Now apparently Afterbirth is perfect…go figure.
A patch has already been released which fixes most of the gripes people had, more changes/balancing/fixing will follow as needed.
This is a good DLC. I’ve watched a bunch of vids on it and it’s a solid addition. Did my first run yesterday and beat the new final boss but I’ve always found the game a bit too easy.
Will try greedier mode at some point but think it’s already been made easier.
Greedier is still pretty darn challenging. The reduction in coin drops alone makes it considerably harder, even without factoring in the tougher enemy waves.
Don’t know why Edmund is still pushing this game so hard. It’s a great game, I love it except for the fact that nothing after rebirth will make it to the Vita, but it’s already got mountains of depth just with that. Should of left it at Afterbirth with mod support, let the community expand it and move on to a new game.
I have a feeling it was because like any game dev there was stuff he had to cut from the release of Afterbirth and wanted to take the time to get it in the game in Afterbirth +.
Now that + is out that’s it, nothing else for the game except community additions.
I’d agree except when the creator himself admits to scraping the bottom of the barrel for parts of the design, he could of added what he really wanted for free and skipped trying to extend the game with half assed design.
Seems more likely he’s stuck in a creative rut (nothing new for Ed) and trying to squeeze every dollar he can out of Isaac.