Bouncing Bloodlasers In Binding Of Isaac Expansion

Part of the torment of tracking the upcoming 'Afterbirth' expansion for The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth [official site] is seeing its changes and additions and crying "I DIED SO MANY TIMES BECAUSE I NEEDED THAT." I get bitter about Isaac losses. Case in point: the shot-bouncifying Rubber Cement will combo with beam weapons like Brimstone and Technology to reflect shots everywhere, and I can think of at least three times it might have saved me after I foolishly picked up cruddy Technology.

Edmund McMillen's latest dev blog post shows off this and a few other combos coming in Afterbirth, along with a new boss. (Warning: GIFs ahoy (WebMs, really, unless your browser doesn't like 'em).)

Look, doesn't this almost make you want to use Tech and Tech 2?

Rubber Cement with Brimstone and Tammy's Head is as ridiculous as you'd expect, filling a room with bloodlasers:

Conversely, I can think of many times when the shot-doubling 20/20 combined with the bomb-shooting Dr. Fetus would've got me killed. Or killed even faster, I suppose.

Those aren't the only new combos being added, but it won't have everything you might want. Combos like this were missing in the original Rebirth, McMillen explained a while back, because "almost all the cool item stacking in Rebirth has to be hard coded, this isn't easy because there are so damn many possible item combos it's just not realistic to have a functional combo for every item in the game."

And here's a peek at a new boss, Little Horn, who ducks down into the ground and tosses up troll bombs. McMillen says he "has more attacks than normal bosses."

McMillen teases he'll announce a release date for Afterbirth with a trailer next week. I do hope it's soon; I'm looking forward to Afterbirth more than... anything this side of Cyberpunk 2077, maybe. I imagine daily challenges will become part of my daily routine. It'll also bring new alternate floors, a new character, new items, a mysterious new mode, and plenty more.