The Binding of Isaac: why Repentance+ removed the French translation and how to get French back in 2026

If the "French" option has vanished from your menus in The Binding of Isaac, you haven't broken anything: the French translation comes from the Repentance expansion, not the base game; it was removed at the same time Repentance+ arrived, on November 18, 2024. This isn't a glitch.

The only official way to get the French version back, as of August 17, 2026: disable the Repentance+ DLC in Steam and leave only Repentance active. A one-minute fix, but a steep price — Repentance+ is precisely the expansion that brings four-player online co-op and Steam-Epic crossplay.

Twenty-one months after the removal, nothing has come back. The game's French-language Steam discussions document a player's assumption — that translations would return "once the beta is over" —, a follow-up left unanswered in December 2025, and then an acknowledgment of failure in June. Here are the three options, and what each one costs.

The French version isn't in the base game: it's the Repentance expansion that installs it

This starting point is widely misunderstood, even by players who own every DLC: The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth contains no French translation, and neither Afterbirth nor Afterbirth+ adds one. The official French localization comes from a single expansion, Repentance.

When it's active, a language line appears in the options menu and lets you switch to "French". That's the only official path: as of August 17, 2026, Steam's public API queried in French for app 250900 returns only "English". The French version lived inside a DLC — which is why another DLC was able to override it.

Late 2024: the translations were removed on purpose, they weren't lost

In the French-language Steam discussions, on December 5 and 6, 2024, a player reports the disappearance of the language option. The reply marked as the solution doesn't mention a bug: the translations were removed with the arrival of Repentance+, then in beta.

The player who answers gives two reasons, and they hold up: avoiding a half-translated game, which would be worse in practice than an entirely English-language game, and letting the developers rework menus and text without waiting on the translators. No return was ever promised by the publisher: it's this same player who assumed, in December 2024, that the languages would come back once the beta was over.

Since no file is corrupted, the usual troubleshooting steps are useless: verifying the integrity of the cache, reinstalling the game, or changing the Steam client's language will all give the same result.

From February 2025 to June, French never came back

What follows can be summed up in five milestones, taken from the December 2024 thread and from "Traduction du jeu".

A word on this last data point: the message is dated June 23, with no year mentioned, as Steam does for the current year, and its position in the thread, after the December 2025 revival, places it in 2026. We're presenting this as a deduction, not as a date read at face value. Between November 18, 2024 and this Monday, August 17, 2026, that is twenty-one months, the official French version has never returned to Repentance+.

The only official solution comes down to a checkbox in the game's properties

You go back to the earlier setup, with Repentance as the last active expansion:

1. In Steam, right-click on The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth, then go to its properties.
2. Open the DLC tab.
3. Uncheck Repentance+ and leave Repentance checked.
4. Let Steam apply the change, then relaunch the game.
5. In the options, the language line is back: select "French."

No files to edit, and the operation can be undone by re-checking the box. One caveat: we have no way of confirming how saves and progress react to switching back and forth between the two expansions. Copy your save folder before switching.

Workshop mods, an unofficial third way that predates the problem

A dedicated Steam Workshop collection exists, "Mods français" (ID 2846056112): twelve items aimed at French-speaking players — one of which remains in English — featuring several community translations. A legitimate option, provided you know what you're installing.

These mods are not official: neither produced nor validated by the studio. More importantly, none of the mods in this collection is presented as compatible with Repentance+: the only one that translates the entire game, labeled "(OBSOLETE)" by its author, targets Repentance and hasn't been updated since November 2022 — its author declared it obsolete themselves once the official French version arrived. Another carries the "[AB+]" prefix, meaning Afterbirth+: two expansions behind. The collection itself dates back to August 2022.

Second limitation: a community translation doesn't necessarily use the same terms as the official Repentance French version. An item renamed by a mod becomes impossible to find when searching for information online. Finally, this is a strictly PC-only answer.

The game hasn't been updated since April 20: don't expect an immediate fix

The last documented update is version v1.9.7.17.J460, released on April 20, 2026, following v1.9.7.16.J450 on April 11. May, June, July, August: nothing. Yet the game hasn't been abandoned. On July 10, 2026, Edmund McMillen posted a FAQ on the Steam page stating that the team is working on a small update, likely to come out before the end of the year — without a word about translations. And the game remains heavily played: according to SteamDB, a peak of 156,156 concurrent players on July 7, 2026, nearly twelve years after its release. Hence the frustration: an active French-speaking community is playing in English for lack of a single menu line.

French or online multiplayer: as of August 17, 2026, you have to choose

There is no universal answer. If your Isaac playthroughs are solitary — the case for the vast majority of runs — unchecking Repentance+ makes the game legible, which is no small detail in a title built on reading effects and synergies. If you discovered it through online co-op or crossplay, whose setup we detailed on August 10 in our multiplayer guide, the balance tips the other way.

As for the timeline, there is none for the French localization: no date has ever been announced by the publisher, a follow-up request went unanswered on December 19, 2025, and a June assessment had no effect. The approach remains the same as it was twenty-one months ago: a box to uncheck, and a choice to own.