After 14 years, two games, and four expansions, The Binding of Isaac is finally going to get one of its most requested features and see what each item does in-game.
If you asked me what the greatest indie game ever made is, I'd, without hesitation, tell you it's The Binding of Isaac. While obviously not the first roguelike game on the scene, it's the game that introduced me to the genre and helped me fall in love with it, and its remake/replacement, The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth, is by far my most played game across Steam and PlayStation if you combine my hours on both.
Part of the roguelike element – and one of the game's biggest criticisms from some – is that there are tons of items, like it's in the thousands now, and outside of minor descriptors when you pick them up, that can range from actual info like "HP + tears up" to "plop." And when you factor in that multiple items look incredibly similar, it's easy to pick an item that will kill your run. As such a popular mod for the game has been the item descriptions mod which tells you what each item actually does when you walk near it.
As announced on the game's Steam news page, The Binding of Isaac Rebirth patch 1.9.7.13, finally adds official item descriptions to the game for "every collectible, consumable, and trinket in the game". The devs say "You might just find this handy if you happen to be one of the few people who, for some reason, has trouble keeping track of every single effect from all 1000+ of them."
However, unlike the popular mod, which has the descriptions show up immediately, there's a catch. First, you'll need to have beaten the Mom boss fight to unlock it, and you won't receive a description for an item until you pick it up at least once. But after that, "you can finally read stuff while playing a video game, like some kinda nerd or something!"
The patch also adds a new devil deal where you can use spikes to harm yourself (like in the sacrifice rooms), with the reward pool being Devil Room items that also harm you. Plus, the golden trinkets have received a major buff "if you’ve unlocked golden trinkets, or have played some runs with Mom’s Box, then you probably quickly realized that a lot of the so-called ‘upgraded’ trinkets kinda sorta had no upgraded effects to them at all, actually. That has been fixed with the addition of upgrade effects for EVERY trinket, including some that are pretty unique and powerful."
