Magdalene
Have 7 or more Red Heart Containers at one time
Heart containers, not filled hearts — soul and black hearts do not count. Easiest on a run that finds a couple of Heart-container items early.
Unlocking characters
All 34 of them — Isaac is there from the start. Open this with the tracker's save on the same device and the ones you still need come to the top.
Unlocks are disabled on pre-set seeds, in Challenges and Daily Challenges, and during Victory Laps. If you are hunting one of these, start an ordinary unseeded run.
The Forgotten
The achievement is listed only as "It's complicated", which is why people miss it for hundreds of hours. It is one run, but it has to be the right run.
Before you start
- The Lamb must already be beaten on the file. Normal or Hard both count.
- Strongly recommended: have The Negative unlocked first (defeat Satan 5 times). Without it you can only reach the Dark Room through a Sacrifice Room, which is not guaranteed to appear.
- Unseeded run. A pre-set seed disables unlocks entirely.
The run
- Get the first Broken Shovel pieceAny character. Kill the first floor's boss within one minute. Mom yells, you hear running footsteps, and a huge shovel-handle shadow falls across the starting room. Go back and bomb the starting room — the Broken Shovel spawns.
It lies on the floor until you touch it, and once it is your active item you must never leave it on a pedestal or it disappears. A Schoolbag lets you carry a second active safely.
On an XL floor only the last boss has to die inside the minute. Holding the shovel makes Mom stomp at you constantly for the rest of the run — using it stops the stomping for the current room. - Complete Boss Rush while holding itKill Mom, then clear Boss Rush with the Broken Shovel in hand. That grants the second piece and completes Mom's Shovel.
Two things make this less stressful than it sounds: the 20-minute Boss Rush limit does not apply on this run, and the hole down to the Womb stays sealed until Boss Rush is done, so you cannot accidentally skip it. - Dig in the Dark RoomTake The Negative from Mom, then Sheol, Satan, and down to the Dark Room. Holding Mom's Shovel suppresses the beam of light to the Cathedral, so the trapdoor is your only exit anyway.
One Grave Room with a dirt patch in the centre appears on the floor. Stand on the patch and use Mom's Shovel. Do not leave the room until the soul has risen off the top of the screen or it may not register.
If you happen to have Spindown Dice and find Mucormycosis, one press turns it straight into the completed Mom's Shovel — skipping both shovel steps.
Any tainted character
All seventeen use the same procedure, and the only thing that changes is which character you are playing when you open the closet. One per run.
Before you start
- A Strange Door must be unlocked — defeat Mother once, on any character.
- You need The Polaroid or The Negative in hand to open the door, and it is consumed. Broken Padlock, Cracked Orb, Faded Polaroid, Soul of Cain and Sharp Key open it instead. Mr. ME!, Dad's Key, Mysterious Paper and the Get out of Jail Free Card do not.
- You need a Red Key, Cracked Key or Soul of Cain to open the closet itself. Those three, nothing else.
The run
- Escape Mom's boss roomA Strange Door spawns in the starting room of Depths II / Necropolis II / Dank Depths II — main path only. The problem is that Mom's boss room normally drops you straight to the Womb, so you have to teleport out.
The reliable route: a Marked Skull always spawns somewhere on the second floor of the chapter, and breaking it drops a guaranteed 0 - The Fool. Grab the free Boss Rush item first, then teleport back to the starting room. - Open the door and take Dad's NoteThe door leads to a special Mausoleum II / Gehenna II. Its boss room holds Dad's Note instead of a boss. Picking it up starts the Ascent.
Before you touch it, drop a trinket in a Boss Room or Treasure Room — see the Cracked Key note below. - Climb the AscentYou go back up through shortened versions of every floor you came down, in reverse: Mausoleum II, Depths, Mines, Caves, Downpour, Basement. Each one starts you in that floor's boss room and you head for the beam of light in its starting room. Entering the beam on Basement I takes you to Home.
After Mausoleum II you take full-heart damage for the rest of the climb. Treasure and Boss Rooms are the ones you saw on the way down; no other special rooms spawn, and Devil and Angel doors will not open. - Open the closet in HomeHome runs: bedroom, right corridor, a pickup room, the double-height living room with the TV, then a narrow left corridor up to Mom's bedroom. The closet is on the left wall of that corridor. Holding a Red or Cracked Key makes a faint red door outline visible on it.
Inside is the tainted version of whoever you are currently playing, lying on the floor. Touch them (or set off a bomb next to them) and they are unlocked.
This happens before Dogma and The Beast, so you can open the closet and then die to The Beast and keep the character.
If the character is already unlocked, or you are playing a tainted character, the closet holds Inner Child instead.
Getting a key for the closet
Red Key — the chest in Mom's bedroom contains one the very first time you reach Home, guaranteed. After that it appears rarely, from Curse Rooms, the Key Master, Mom's Chest, Red Chests, Secret and Ultra Secret Rooms.
Cracked Key — this is the one to plan around. Drop any trinket in a Boss Room or a Treasure Room before you pick up Dad's Note, and when the Ascent begins that trinket becomes a Cracked Key in that room. Collect it on the way up. This is exactly what Cracked Key exists for.
To guarantee you have a trinket to sacrifice: clear three consecutive floors without taking damage and Perfection is guaranteed to spawn. Mom's Box generates extra trinkets if you want to seed several rooms at once.
Soul of Cain also opens the closet, but its own unlock is "defeat Hush and Boss Rush as Tainted Cain" — circular, so it is no help for your first tainted characters.
Every character
⌕
Cain
Hold 55 Coins at one time
The coin cap is 99, so this is barely a hurdle. Greed Mode is the fast route: coins pour in and you can bank them without spending.
Judas
Defeat Satan
Any character. Take the trapdoor after Mom's Heart or It Lives! instead of the beam of light.
??? (Character)
Defeat Mom's Heart 10 times
Cumulative across runs, and It Lives! kills count — you do not have to keep fighting the earlier version.
Eve
Don't pick up any hearts for 2 floors in a row
Any heart type breaks it — red, soul, black, eternal. Watch for auto-pickup walking you over one. The trick: play ??? , who cannot pick up red hearts at all, and simply avoid the rest.
Samson
Complete 2 floors in a row without taking damage
Self-damage counts, so Curse Rooms, Sacrifice Rooms and Blood Donation Machines all break the streak.
Azazel
Make 3 Deals with the Devil in one run
Three Devil items in one run, which means keeping your Devil Room chance alive across several floors — do not take damage on the boss floors. A Black Market counts.
Lazarus
Have 4 or more Soul Hearts at one time
Black hearts count as soul hearts for this one.
Eden
Complete Chapter 4
Just beat Mom's Heart or It Lives! once, clearing the Womb.
The Lost
Die in a Sacrifice Room while holding Missing Poster
Die in a Sacrifice Room while holding Missing Poster. Missing Poster itself needs unlocking first — defeat The Lamb as Isaac.
Finding the trinket is the real work: check shops for Mom's Box, and Glyph of Balance turns champion drops and room-clear rewards into trinkets while you hold none, which massively improves the odds.
Two traps. Sacrificing 6 times in a row gives a 33% chance of an Angel Room teleport and 12+ gives a 50% Dark Room teleport — so keep your total health at 11 hearts or fewer before the killing blow, and if you teleport out at the instant of death it does not register. You do not have to die to the spikes; any damage in the room works.
Lilith
Defeat Ultra Greed as Azazel
Greed Mode, not Greedier.
Keeper
Donate 1000 Coins to the Greed Donation Machine
Cumulative across runs. The machine jams from time to time; jam chance is per character, so switching characters resets it.
Apollyon
Defeat Mega Satan
Needs Key Piece 1 and Key Piece 2 from the angels, then the golden door in the starting room of The Chest or the Dark Room.
The Forgotten
It's complicated
Bethany
Defeat Mom's Heart or It Lives! on hard mode as Lazarus, without dying at all
The in-game text says "beat Hard mode as Lazarus without losing a life" — and Lazarus's own revival counts as losing one. Dying and continuing as Lazarus Risen fails it.
Jacob and Esau
Defeat Mother
Any character. Mother is the Corpse II boss at the end of the alternate path — Downpour, Mines, Mausoleum, Corpse.
Tainted Isaac
Use Red Key (etc.) to open the hidden closet in Home as Isaac
Play as Isaac and open the closet in Home. See the procedure above.
Tainted Magdalene
Use Red Key (etc.) to open the hidden closet in Home as Magdalene
Play as Magdalene and open the closet in Home. See the procedure above.
Tainted Cain
Use Red Key (etc.) to open the hidden closet in Home as Cain
Play as Cain and open the closet in Home. See the procedure above.
Tainted Judas
Use Red Key (etc.) to open the hidden closet in Home as Judas
Play as Judas and open the closet in Home. See the procedure above.
Tainted ???
Use Red Key (etc.) to open the hidden closet in Home as ???
Play as ??? and open the closet in Home. See the procedure above.
Tainted Eve
Use Red Key (etc.) to open the hidden closet in Home as Eve
Play as Eve and open the closet in Home. See the procedure above.
Tainted Samson
Use Red Key (etc.) to open the hidden closet in Home as Samson
Play as Samson and open the closet in Home. See the procedure above.
Tainted Azazel
Use Red Key (etc.) to open the hidden closet in Home as Azazel
Play as Azazel and open the closet in Home. See the procedure above.
Tainted Lazarus
Use Red Key (etc.) to open the hidden closet in Home as Lazarus
Play as Lazarus and open the closet in Home. See the procedure above.
Tainted Eden
Use Red Key (etc.) to open the hidden closet in Home as Eden
Play as Eden and open the closet in Home. See the procedure above.
Tainted Lost
Use Red Key (etc.) to open the hidden closet in Home as The Lost
Play as The Lost and open the closet in Home. See the procedure above.
Tainted Lilith
Use Red Key (etc.) to open the hidden closet in Home as Lilith
Play as Lilith and open the closet in Home. See the procedure above.
Tainted Keeper
Use Red Key (etc.) to open the hidden closet in Home as Keeper
Play as Keeper and open the closet in Home. See the procedure above.
Tainted Apollyon
Use Red Key (etc.) to open the hidden closet in Home as Apollyon
Play as Apollyon and open the closet in Home. See the procedure above.
Tainted Forgotten
Use Red Key (etc.) to open the hidden closet in Home as The Forgotten
Play as The Forgotten and open the closet in Home. See the procedure above.
Tainted Bethany
Use Red Key (etc.) to open the hidden closet in Home as Bethany
Play as Bethany and open the closet in Home. See the procedure above.
Tainted Jacob
Use Red Key (etc.) to open the hidden closet in Home as Jacob and Esau
Play as Jacob and Esau and open the closet in Home. See the procedure above.