If you’ve been looking forward to playing The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth on an iPad or iPhone, we have some pretty bad news for you: Apple have decided to reject the title because it depicts violence towards kids.
Nicalis founder Tyrone Rodriguez has shared an image of Apple’s message on Twitter (below) which shows the rejection notice in all its disappointing glory.
C'mon, wtf… Apple pic.twitter.com/aEygkjqH2b
— Tyrone Rodriguez (@tyronerodriguez) February 7, 2016
The Binding of Isaac is a procedurally generated dungeon crawler that concerns a young boy trying to escape from his mum (who has been ordered by God to kill him).
It’s based on a story from the Hebrew Bible in which God asks Abraham to sacrifice his own child to test his faith. Real Disney stuff, y’know.
Originally for PC, The Binding of Isaac got a load of new content and a new game engine and was given the Rebirth tag.
Rebirth has since seen release on PS4, Xbox One, PlayStation Vita and even Wii U and 3DS. Nintendo rejected an earlier 3DS port themselves – but their objections were based on the religious overtones.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OLtZW3xIix0
Apple might yet change their mind, and hopefully Rodriguez can get it all cleared up. In the meantime, you can play it on just about every other device/console, so it’s not all bad.
Ewan Moore is a journalist at UNILAD Gaming who still quite hasn’t gotten out of his mid 00’s emo phase. After graduating from the University of Portsmouth in 2015 with a BA in Journalism & Media Studies (thanks for asking), he went on to do some freelance words for various places, including Kotaku, Den of Geek, and TheSixthAxis, before landing a full time gig at UNILAD in 2016.