Mewgenics might be the hottest Edmund McMillen roguelike in town, but stone cold classic The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth is no worse off. In fact, more abandoned children are fending off malformed horrors in their mother’s basement than ever—the game reached a new all-time concurrent player count peak on Steam today.
The new big number is a whopping 123,429. It’s simmered down a bit as I write this, but it’s still comfortably in six figures territory. Not bad for a game that first released in 2014, effectively supplanting the Flash original.
Even as the roguelike scene has continued to boom over the last decade, Isaac remains right around the top of the pile with heavy hitters like Slay the Spire, Balatro, and, well, Rogue.
Mods probably have something to do with it, as they helped the game bloom into all sorts of new forms once the Let’s Play and Twitch streamer circuits drew countless eyes to it. But the game itself is no slouch, arguably remaining one of the most essential in its genre.
PC Gamer’s Chris Thursten gave the 2011 version an 83% in his review, saying it’ll “draw you in and spit you out without a second thought.” Players simply refuse to be spit out, trapped in an endless cycle of punishment and rebirth not unlike Isaac’s relationship to Christianity.
Notably, that new peak The Binding of Isaac just reached is a dash higher than Mewgenics’s all-time peak, right around 115,000. Isaac is certainly being helped along by its long-held reputation, as well as the Steam summer sale, which currently has the game going for just $1.49—the steepest discount in the game’s history.
That’s Rebirth, keep in mind… the original Flash-based game is more expensive by about 5 cents just in case you want to pay more to get less. That’s very in these days.
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