Skip to main content
  1. Home
  2. Gaming
  3. Mobile
  4. News

The Binding of Isaac’s abused boy gets rejected by Apple

By
Add as a preferred source on Google

The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth is a dirty, disgusting, and provocative game. It’s also great, as we discussed in our review of the much improved version of the original game, which was just labeled The Binding of Isaac. It features a religious narrative that brings up both child abuse and the bible in the same story. But despite its artistic qualities and responsive gameplay, Apple thinks it’s a little bit too much for iOS users to handle.

The developer had apparently applied for publishing rights on Apple’s App Store, but the response it got was pretty clear. Producer and co-developer of Rebirth (as well as the creator of the original game), Tyrone Rodriguez tweeted concerning the rejection.

Recommended Videos

“Your app contains content or features that depict violence towards, or abuse of, children, which is not allowed on the App.”

So much for that. The developer originally spoke of a possible iOS version back in 2014, but said that he would only release it if it wouldn’t be garbage. Since then, nobody had heard about the port until yesterday’s tweet. Understandably, Rodriguez didn’t take the news very well. His game criticizes domestic abuse more than anything, and the heavy cartoon influences should work in its favor when it comes to how severe the restrictions are with depictions of violence.

Isaac was previously published on Nintendo’s portable 3DS and its stationary Wii U console. The company behind iconic and family-friendly franchises like Super Mario and Kirby initially rejected the game for both gaming systems. The reason was said to be due to “questionable religious content.” But after some assistance from Nintendo’s former director of indie development, Dan Adelman, the developer was finally able to launch on Nintendo’s platforms last year, according to an interview with Rodriguez held by Polygon.

Before any talk of whether the iOS version of The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth could pull through, whether the developer will keep trying to get the game published or not is still up in the air.

Dan Isacsson
Dan Isacsson
Former Contributor
Being a gamer since the age of three, Dan took an interest in mobile gaming back in 2009. Since then he's been digging ever…
Topics
Here’s every game you can download on Xbox next week
Palworld's 1.0 launch leads a 24-game lineup that also includes Assassin's Creed Black Flag Resynced.
Assassin's Creed Black Flag Recynced image

Xbox has shared its rundown of next week's releases, and the list includes 24 new games arriving between July 6 and July 10. The lineup is headlined by two major AAA titles, three notable additions to Game Pass, and a long list of smaller indie games.

Two AAA pre-orders lead the week

Read more
Sony may have been digging the grave of physical PlayStation games for years.
Sony’s Austria disc plant shift suggests physical PlayStation games were already on the way out
The Playstation 5 system standing upright.

Sony recently announced that physical game discs for new PlayStation releases will end in January 2028, and the timing immediately raised questions.

The decision came shortly after Rockstar reportedly generated more than $3 billion in revenue from preorders of GTA 6, including digital editions and code-in-a-box physical copies. That led some critics and fans to wonder whether GTA 6’s massive digital success had pushed Sony into making such a major call.

Read more
Sony is helping bury physical games, and preservation is being left to clean up the mess
A reported 2028 cutoff for PS5 discs gives the industry a deadline it still doesn’t seem ready to handle.
A PS5 sitting on its side with two Dualsense controllers next to it on the right.

Sony’s reported plan to stop producing PS5 discs in 2028 would push PlayStation deeper into a digital-first future, where access depends on licenses, storefront policy, and platform support lasting longer than companies usually promise.

That’s tidy for Sony and ugly for game preservation. Physical media was never a perfect archive, but removing it before a serious replacement exists turns the survival of old games into someone else’s emergency. It also raises questions about long-term ownership, resale rights, and whether players can truly rely on purchases to remain accessible decades later.

Read more