Completion Marks

Route

Basement/Cellar/Burning Basement I-II -> Caves/Catacombs/Flooded Caves I-II -> Depths/Necropolis/Dank Depths I-II (Mom) -> Womb/Utero/Scarred Womb I-II -> Mom's Heart (or It Lives! after 11 Mom's Heart kills)

Requirements

Defeat Mom's Heart or It Lives! at the end of Womb II. This is the baseline 'beat the game' mark.

Gotchas

• The character-specific co-op baby tied to this mark is the one unlock in the whole regular-character table that is explicitly gated to Hard mode: the achievement text reads 'Defeat Mom's Heart on Hard mode as <character>'. Every other regular-character mark unlock fires on Normal too.
• After 11 Mom's Heart kills the boss becomes It Lives!; both award the same mark.
• Marks are not awarded in Challenge runs.

How to actually do it

This is the shortest run in the game and the one you will replay most while unlocking characters. On Hard mode take every damage up you can and do not skip Devil/Angel rooms, since Hard mode cuts heart drops and champion payouts. If you are also chasing Boss Rush or Hush on the same run, kill Mom before 20:00 and Mom's Heart before 30:00 and you can bank two or three marks in one go.

Route

... -> Womb II -> Mom's Heart/It Lives -> take the BEAM OF LIGHT to Cathedral -> Isaac

Requirements

Requires The Polaroid (dropped by Mom's Heart on the run it is first beaten / unlocked permanently). Take the light beam, not the trapdoor, after Mom's Heart.

Gotchas

• Mutually exclusive within a single run with the Inverted Cross (Satan) and Negative (The Lamb) marks - the light beam and the trapdoor go opposite directions.
• Also mutually exclusive in-run with Mother and The Beast, which sit on the alternate path.
• Beating Isaac 10 times unlocks the Triachnid/'Something Icky' secret; unrelated to the mark itself.

How to actually do it

Standard Womb II -> Mom's Heart -> light beam -> Cathedral -> Isaac. Isaac is one of the easiest final bosses, so this mark is usually free once you can clear Mom's Heart. Grab an Angel Room on the way up if you can; Key Pieces from Uriel and Gabriel also set up the Mega Satan mark on the same run.

Route

... -> Womb II -> Mom's Heart/It Lives -> light beam -> Cathedral -> Isaac -> golden chest -> The Chest -> ???

Requirements

Defeat Isaac in Cathedral, then enter the large golden chest he leaves to reach The Chest; ??? is the floor boss.

Gotchas

• You must actually beat Isaac first - The Chest is only reachable through him (barring Black Market / I AM ERROR shortcuts).
• Beating ??? or The Lamb once permanently unlocks the Mega Satan golden gate ('The Angels Await').

How to actually do it

Same run as the Cross mark: kill Isaac, jump in the chest, clear The Chest, kill ???. The Chest is item-dense so you usually arrive stronger than you left. If you are pushing for Mega Satan too, hold your Key Pieces - the golden gate is in The Chest's starting room.

Route

... -> Womb II -> Mom's Heart/It Lives -> take the TRAPDOOR to Sheol -> Satan

Requirements

Requires The Negative (unlocked by defeating Satan 5 times; on a fresh file the trapdoor route works without it). Take the trapdoor, not the light beam.

Gotchas

• Mutually exclusive in-run with Cross (Isaac) and Polaroid (???).
• Defeating Satan is also the unlock condition for the character Judas.
• Satan's second phase can end runs that coasted through Mom's Heart - the stomp/Fallen phase punishes low-damage builds.

How to actually do it

Trapdoor after Mom's Heart into Sheol. Devil Rooms are plentiful on this route, so a Brimstone/Cricket's Head style damage build is very achievable. Save a defensive active or a Holy Mantle source for the leg-stomp phase, which is the usual failure point.

Route

... -> Womb II -> Mom's Heart/It Lives -> trapdoor -> Sheol -> Satan -> trapdoor -> Dark Room -> The Lamb

Requirements

Defeat Satan in Sheol, then take the trapdoor he leaves to the Dark Room; The Lamb is the floor boss. Reaching the Dark Room normally requires The Negative.

Gotchas

• Without The Negative unlocked you can still reach the Dark Room via a Black Market trapdoor from Sheol, an I AM ERROR room in Sheol, a Secret Room reward-plate trapdoor in Sheol, or by using a Sacrifice Room 12+ times.
• Defeating The Lamb for the first time spawns the Mega Satan door in the starting room even if it was not there when you entered the floor.
• The Lamb must be defeated at least once before The Forgotten can be unlocked.

How to actually do it

Continuation of the Satan run - kill Satan, take his trapdoor, clear the Dark Room. The Lamb's body-and-head split phase is the danger; keep moving and do not stand in the corners where the head charges converge. Red Chests in the Dark Room can give you extra items but also damage, so open them only if you have health to spare.

Route

Chapter 6 (The Chest or Dark Room) -> Golden Gate in the STARTING ROOM -> Mega Satan

Requirements

??? or The Lamb must have been defeated on an earlier run for the Golden Gate to exist. Then open the gate with Key Piece 1 + Key Piece 2 (from Uriel and Gabriel), or Dad's Key, or Get out of Jail Free Card, or Mr. ME!, or Sharp Key, or Soul of Cain.

Gotchas

• Key Pieces come from killing the angels Uriel and Gabriel - bomb an Angel Room statue, or step on Sacrifice Room spikes a 9th and 11th time.
• Beating Mega Satan normally ENDS the run instantly. Since Afterbirth+/Repentance there is a 50% chance it instead drops an ending chest plus a Void portal; in Repentance+ the Void portal after Mega Satan is guaranteed.
• Because the run usually ends on the kill, do Mega Satan LAST if you are trying to bank several marks in one run.
• Mega Satan marks did not exist in the base game even though the fight did.

How to actually do it

Plan the Angel Room track from Basement I: skip Devil deals, bomb angel statues, and bank both Key Pieces before Chapter 6. Sacrifice Rooms are the reliable backup - the 9th and 11th spike hits summon Uriel and Gabriel directly. Mega Satan is a long HP sponge with a scripted attack loop, so consistent DPS matters more than burst; bring an emergency active for the second phase's beam sweep.

Route

Defeat Mom in Depths/Necropolis/Dank Depths II within 20:00 -> Boss Rush door opens in Mom's boss room. Repentance alt path: defeat Mom in Mausoleum/Gehenna II within 25:00.

Requirements

Kill Mom before the timer, then enter the Boss Rush door and pick up one of the pedestal items to start it. 15 waves, 2 bosses per wave.

Gotchas

• The timer is on KILLING Mom, but the door also closes behind you: if you kill Mom under 20:00, leave for a Devil/Angel room and come back after 20:00, the Boss Rush entrance will be shut.
• If you die in Boss Rush and revive, the door is still open only if the timer is still under 20:00; otherwise you can re-enter by dying again in Mom's room at the cost of another life.
• Boss Rush unlocks NOTHING if beaten inside a Challenge run.
• Mama Mega!, Broken Shovel 1, Mega Bean, or Berserk!+Suplex! can blow the door open after the time limit has expired.
• Picking up one of the four pedestal items makes the other three vanish and starts the fight; completing it awards one more item.
• On the Repentance alt path, exiting the Boss Rush room in Gehenna after 25 minutes can relocate the Corpse flesh door onto the Boss Rush doorway, letting you into the Corpse without the knife.

How to actually do it

Treat this as a speedrun: skip shops, skip most secret rooms, and take trapdoors/We Need To Go Deeper. Aim to hit Depths II around 15:00 with a real damage item. Waves come two bosses at a time and do not wait for stragglers, so prioritise raw DPS and a large room-clear active (Mega Blast, Book of Shadows, Crooked Penny) over utility. Grab an item that helps the fight from the four pedestals rather than the one you 'want' for the run.

Route

Defeat Mom's Heart / It Lives! in Womb II within 30:00 -> trapdoor to ??? (Blue Womb) -> Hush

Requirements

The ??? / Blue Womb floor must be unlocked (defeat Mom's Heart for the 10th time). Then beat Mom's Heart/It Lives within 30 minutes and take the trapdoor that appears.

Gotchas

• Leaving and re-entering Mom's Heart's boss room after the 30:00 mark makes the ??? entrance disappear.
• Blue Womb cannot be skipped with We Need To Go Deeper! or Rune of Ehwaz. Genesis skips it straight to Cathedral; a Black Market or I AM ERROR room skips it to Sheol.
• Defeating Hush the FIRST time ends the run with a golden chest (Ending 17). Only on subsequent runs does it give you the trapdoor/light beam onward - so your first Hush kill costs you the rest of that run.
• Defeating Hush is what unlocks The Void (and therefore the Delirium mark).
• Boss Rush (20:00 at Mom) and Hush (30:00 at Mom's Heart) are both reachable in one run if you are fast.

How to actually do it

Same speedrun discipline as Boss Rush but with a 30 minute window - if you cleared Boss Rush around 20:00 you usually have time. Blue Womb is item-rich (four locked chests, two double-item treasure rooms, a full shop), so bank keys before you drop in. Hush is a bullet-hell attrition fight: prioritise range and sustained fire over melee/orbital builds, and expect the shrinking-arena phase to be where runs die.

Route

Greed mode -> clear the Greed mode chapters -> Ultra Greed in the final Greed mode floor

Requirements

Beat Greed mode (not Greedier). Greed mode is a separate mode selected from the character select screen.

Gotchas

• Greed mode is a mode of its own, neither Normal nor Hard. In Afterbirth its mark was drawn with the red outline normally reserved for Hard mode; in Afterbirth+ onward the red-outlined cent sign means GREEDIER and the plain cent sign means GREED.
• Tainted characters have NO Ultra Greed unlock at all - only Greedier counts for them.
• Defeating Ultra Greed as Azazel is the unlock for Lilith. Donating 1000 coins to the Greed Donation Machine unlocks Keeper; 879 coins unlocks The Lost's Holy Mantle.

How to actually do it

Greed mode is wave-based in a fixed arena, so items that cover the whole room (Brimstone, Ipecac, orbitals, Mom's Knife) massively outperform single-target builds. Feed the Greed Donation Machine every run - the coin thresholds unlock Keeper and The Lost's Holy Mantle. Do not spend all your money in shops; Ultra Greed's coin-flip and slot-machine phases are far easier with a strong build than a fat wallet.

Route

Greedier mode -> clear the Greedier mode chapters -> Ultra Greed -> Ultra Greedier (second phase)

Requirements

Beat Greedier mode, the harder variant of Greed mode. Ultra Greedier is the revived second form of Ultra Greed.

Gotchas

• This is the mark that counts as tainted characters' Greed-mode unlock; plain Ultra Greed gives tainted characters nothing.
• The Greedier mark is the red-outlined cent sign, which is why it reads as the 'hard mode' version of the Greed slot.
• Greed-mode marks cannot be farmed with the Forget Me Now / Moving Box multi-character trick that works for the rest of the grid, because Moving Box is not in Greed mode item pools.

How to actually do it

Same room-coverage logic as Greed mode but with tighter margins - Greedier gives less money and harder waves. Bank a strong active item for the Ultra Greedier phase, which starts immediately after Ultra Greed dies with no recovery window. Since this is one of only two Greed marks and tainted characters need it, expect to run Greedier 34 times for Dead God.

Route

Defeat Hush -> exit in the upper-right corner of Hush's 2x2 boss room -> Portal -> The Void -> find the boss room containing Delirium

Requirements

The Void must be unlocked by defeating Hush. After that, a Void portal can spawn after major bosses without needing Hush again.

Gotchas

• Void portal spawn chances: 5% after Mom (only with 10+ tear damage or 20+ items), 10% after Mom's Heart/It Lives, 15% after Isaac or Satan, 20% after ??? or The Lamb, 50% after Mega Satan. Defeating Hush guarantees it. Defeating Mother guarantees it if that character has beaten Mother before. In Repentance+ the portal is also guaranteed after The Lamb, ??? and Mega Satan.
• The Void has MULTIPLE boss rooms and only one contains Delirium. Heuristic from the wiki: look for a boss room that would not connect to other rooms if it were a 2x2 - if it would connect, it is not Delirium.
• The Void has no shops, no treasure rooms, and heavily champion-weighted enemies, so you arrive with whatever you had.
• Delirium teleports constantly and morphs into other bosses; it is widely considered the hardest fight to do consistently.

How to actually do it

Go through Hush if you can - it is the only guaranteed portal early, and it also gives you a Blue Womb's worth of items first. In The Void, clear rooms for the free item pedestals (every room's item is a Void-specific reward) before committing to the Delirium room. In the fight, keep to open space, never chase the teleport, and rely on homing or high-fire-rate builds; Delirium's random boss morphs make fixed-position builds (orbitals, Ludo) unreliable.

Route

Downpour/Dross I-II -> Mines/Ashpit I-II -> Mausoleum/Gehenna I-II (Mom) -> open the flesh door -> Mausoleum Mom's Heart -> Corpse I-II -> Mother

Requirements

Take the alternate path from Chapter 1 (secret exits). Defeat the Mausoleum/Gehenna version of Mom, then OPEN THE FLESH DOOR, then beat the Mausoleum version of Mom's Heart, which converts the Womb entrance into the Corpse entrance. Mother is always the boss of Corpse II.

Gotchas

• Five ways to open the flesh door: (1) Knife Piece 1 + Knife Piece 2 from the Downpour and Mines puzzles, combined into the knife familiar, then stab the door; (2) Sharp Key (costs one key); (3) Cracked Orb, which opens it AND lets you keep the knife; (4) Soul of Cain; (5) exit the Boss Rush room in Gehenna after 25 minutes, which can relocate the flesh door onto the Boss Rush doorway.
• Mama Mega! specifically CANNOT open the flesh door.
• Knife Piece 1 is in Downpour, Knife Piece 2 is in the Mines - if you took Dross/Ashpit variants the puzzles differ but the pieces are still there.
• In Corpse II the boss room is empty except a hole in the centre; walking into the hole drops you into Mother's arena.
• We Need To Go Deeper! and Rune of Ehwaz cannot generate trapdoors in Corpse II.
• Defeating Mother unlocks Jacob and Esau, and permanently unlocks A Strange Door - the gateway to the entire Beast route.
• Mother is mutually exclusive in-run with Isaac/??? and Satan/The Lamb.

How to actually do it

Commit to the alt path from Basement I: the secret exits are in the first room of each chapter's first floor and need a bomb. Do both Knife Piece puzzles - carrying the knife is far more reliable than gambling on Sharp Key or Cracked Orb. The alt-path floors are significantly harder than the main path and full of environmental damage, so bank health and prioritise defensive items early. Mother's phase 2 chase sequence is the killer: keep circling and only shoot on her recovery frames.

Route

Defeat Mom in Depths/Necropolis/Dank Depths II -> escape the boss room holding The Polaroid/The Negative -> A Strange Door in the STARTING ROOM of Depths II -> special Mausoleum/Gehenna II -> Dad's Note in the boss room -> the Ascent (back up every floor) -> Basement I light beam -> Home -> Dogma -> The Beast

Requirements

Mother must have been defeated at least once (permanent unlock) for A Strange Door to appear. The door consumes The Polaroid, The Negative, or Faded Polaroid to open. Dad's Note sits in the boss room of the special Mausoleum/Gehenna II instead of a boss.

Gotchas

• IMPORTANT ROUTE CORRECTION: A Strange Door spawns in the starting room of DEPTHS / NECROPOLIS / DANK DEPTHS II - it does NOT appear on Mausoleum or Gehenna. You take the MAIN path, not the alt path, to reach it.
• You must kill Mom and then LEAVE her boss room without taking the trapdoor - teleport out with a Fool card, Telepills, Ventricle Razor, Forget Me Now, or a teleport active - so you can walk back to the starting room with the Polaroid/Negative in hand.
• A Marked Skull always spawns somewhere on the second floor of the chapter; breaking it drops a guaranteed 0 - The Fool card, which is the reliable escape. With Little Baggy it drops Telepills instead - and with Little Baggy AND False PHD it becomes a ??? pill, which makes escaping much harder.
• The door can also be opened with Broken Padlock, Cracked Orb, Faded Polaroid, Soul of Cain, or Sharp Key. It CANNOT be opened with Mr. ME!, Dad's Key, Mysterious Paper, or a Get out of Jail Free Card, despite those working on similar doors.
• If you hold several, Faded Polaroid is consumed first, then The Negative, then The Polaroid.
• Dad's Note cannot be rerolled or destroyed by The D6, Void, Abyss, or Spindown Dice, and cannot be duplicated by Crooked Penny.
• After leaving Mausoleum II on the Ascent, Isaac starts taking FULL heart damage as if in the Womb.
• During the Ascent, any trinket you deliberately left behind in a Treasure Room or Boss Room turns into a Cracked Key - this is the repeatable way to unlock tainted characters after your first Red Key.
• You can also reach Home by using Glowing Hourglass in the first floor's starting room without entering any other room.
• Dogma must be beaten before The Beast; Dogma grants flight, a one-time Holy Mantle, +2 damage, a heal, and (on Normal mode only) the effect of The Wafer. On Hard mode you do NOT get the Wafer effect.

How to actually do it

This is the longest mark in the game - budget a full run. Kill Mom, break the Marked Skull for the Fool card, teleport out, walk to the starting room and open A Strange Door. Grab Dad's Note and then treat the Ascent as a victory lap with real teeth: enemies are Ascent-exclusive Tainted variants and you take full heart damage from Mausoleum II onward. Save a revive or Holy Mantle source for The Beast - the four Ultra Harbingers before her are a war of attrition, and losing the Dogma mantle early makes phase 1's brimstone sweeps very punishing.