The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth — the seeds guide: 44 of the 69 special codes don't cancel your achievements

The belief is persistent among Isaac players: entering a code means automatically giving up your achievements for the run. The Seeds page of the official French-language wiki tells a different story. Of the 69 special seeds it lists, only 25 carry the "No achievements" notice: the other 44 are listed without this warning. The majority of the codes in the Easter Egg menu are not punished cheats, but alternative game modes.

The essentials boil down to a few rules. A seed is written in 8 characters, split into two blocks of 4. All alphanumeric characters are accepted except 5, I, O and U: on PC, if you type I, O or U, the game automatically replaces them with 1, 0 and V. Special seeds are activated in the Easter Egg section, opened with A (or the left trigger on a controller) during character selection. A seed already discovered is removed from this menu with A + E + Tab on keyboard, LB + RB + X on controller.

A word on language: the game has a French version, so floors, rooms, curses and items have an official French label. The seed codes themselves stay in English: they are fixed strings. The names below are those from the French client, without any homemade translation.

A seed locks in every random decision, and it holds true across platforms

A seed locks in almost the entirety of the run's draws: two players launching the same seed find the same items in the same places. It also gives the same result across all platforms, provided the game version is identical — the wiki cites a seed recorded on Rebirth PC, which works as-is on 3DS, since the console has only ever received Rebirth.

One caveat: if an item that's supposed to appear on a seed isn't unlocked on your profile, it's replaced by an item you own. A "perfect build" seed copied onto a fresh profile therefore won't give the same run.

Special seeds stack, unlock permanently — and some are picked up in-game

A special seed validated once is unlocked permanently: it remains available in the Easter Egg section, without needing to be typed in again. This menu accepts several active modes at the same time — but not just any combination: PTCH BLCK and THEB LANK, for example, cannot be activated together.

Many of these codes aren't obtained from the internet but are found in-game, via the Rules Card and the Fortune Telling Machine. Others were distributed directly by the developers.

What "canceling achievements" actually means, and why 44 codes escape it

The general rule stated by the wiki is as follows: aside from a few seeds, manually entering a seed brings up the "No trophies" mark. It does not erase any already-earned achievements and does not penalize your profile: it blocks the unlocking of any new achievement for the current run. Restart the same run without a code: achievements become accessible again.

It's the list of special seeds that nuances the prevailing narrative. Out of its 69 entries — numbered from 1 to 79 with gaps, IDs 22, 31, 34, 39, 40, 45, 49, 50, 51 and 69 not existing —, only 25 are flagged "No achievements."

Two caveats. This count is our own, carried out on August 16, 2026 on the French wiki page, and "No achievements" is an editorial convention, not a string displayed by the game. The page's general statement and its own table don't quite say the same thing, incidentally. The only real arbiter is the screen: if the "No Achievements" mark is displayed, the run won't unlock anything.

One last filter before copying down a code, the expansions: out of the 69 special seeds, 21 require Afterbirth or Afterbirth+ and 3 require Repentance.

Nine codes that cut off achievements, two that leave them active: the selection to copy down

Two clarifications. BASE MENT isn't a dead end: the halo of light after Genesis leads to chapter 2, and a Sacrifice Room used 12 times teleports you to the Dark Room, enough to see a normal ending. And GFVE LLLL bans fifteen items, including Dr. Fetus, Mom's Eye, Sulfur, and Tech X: it's a mode, not a shortcut to a build.

Seven permanent curses for training — and seven immunities that, on the other hand, cut off achievements

The wiki sorts the seeds into families — Curses, Curse Immunity, Camouflage, Visual Effects, Monster Modifiers, Music Modifier… The two curse families are the most concrete for working on a weak point. The seven permanent curses, all gated behind Afterbirth: DARK NESS (Darkness), LABY RNTH (Labyrinth), L0ST (Lost), VNKN 0WN (Unknown), MAZE (Maze), BL1N D (Blind) and CVRS ED (Cursed). Only LABY RNTH is flagged there as "No achievements". Facing them, the immunities: N1TE L1TE, THRE AD, F0VN D, N0W1 KN0W, PATH F1ND and BRA1 LLE, plus BLCK CNDL, which grants total curse immunity. Beware: unlike the curses themselves, all seven immunity codes are marked "No achievements", and all are gated behind Afterbirth. To work on a weak point without losing anything, it's the curse you need to activate, not its immunity.

Difficulty, timer, music: the other codes that change a run

• BRTL B0NS — "Twelve hearts of damage", with a workaround: if you have red hearts and soul or black hearts, the hit empties those instead of killing you.
• HARD HARD — one full heart of damage, regardless of the source. 1CES KATE — ice physics: purple elites become almost impossible to shake off.
• 30M1 N1TS — 30 minutes to finish the game. THEG H0ST — every 45 seconds, a ticking sound starts, then Isaac loses half a heart 5 seconds later.
• KEEP TRAK — no more HUD or floor name. KAPP A — black and white, except for exceptions like Kidney Stone. MED1 C1NE and FACE D0WN — pills and cards displayed as ???.
• On the soundtrack side: ANDA NTE and LARG HET0 slow it down, ALLE GR0 and PRES T0 speed it up, SL0W 4ME2 ties it to your movements, HART BEAT to your health, and FART SNDS replaces every sound with fart noises.

A guide that won't expire: the game has been frozen since April 2026

No deadline to watch out for here, and that's good news for this kind of guide: the latest published versions are 1.9.7.16.J450 from April 11, 2026 and 1.9.7.17.J460 from April 20, 2026, and Edmund McMillen has since only mentioned a "small update" hoped for before the end of the year. The game remains highly active though: 156,000 concurrent players at peak, recorded by SteamDB during the week of June 30 to July 7, 2026.

One last caveat: nothing formally confirms that all 69 seeds still work under Repentance+ 1.9.7.17. The wiki doesn't report any removal, but the absence of a mention isn't proof. Verification is a quick glance anyway: enter the code and check whether the "No achievements" mark appears.