The Forgotten

The Forgotten is a secret character added in Booster Pack that resembles a Bony. He cannot fire regular tears, and instead has a bone club that can be swung as a melee weapon or charged to be thrown.

The Forgotten cannot acquire regular heart containers. Any regular heart containers acquired will be turned into bone hearts, and any soul or black hearts will be given to The Soul. The Forgotten and The Soul share a health bar, so each form has a maximum of 6 hearts instead of the regular 12.

The Soul
Pressing the swap key (CTRL on PC / R2 on PS4 / RT on Xbox / ZR on Switch) will switch control to The Soul, a blue ghost chained to The Forgotten who fires spectral tears and flies.

While controlling The Soul, The Forgotten cannot take damage, blocks all normal shots that touch it, and attracts shots in a small <1 tile radius. If The Soul dies, the run will end.

Unlocking The Forgotten
The Lamb must have been defeated previously before The Forgotten can be unlocked, and unlocking The Forgotten can be done in both Normal and Hard difficulty. Having unlocked is recommended.

Step 1 and Step 2 can be circumvented entirely if you use on, as it will reroll into the completed Shovel.


 * 1) First, start a new unseeded run as any character. Defeat the first floor's boss within 1 minute. If done correctly, Mom will yell and the sound of running footsteps will play, then a large shadow of a shovel handle will loom over the floor of the starting room. Bombing anywhere in the starting room will spawn the . Initially the shovel piece behaves like a pickup, laying on the floor, and turns into an active collectible only when touched for the first time.
 * 2) * Holding the Broken Shovel will cause Mom to continually try to stomp Isaac. Using the Broken Shovel will stop the stomping for the current room, or the current wave of a multi-wave room such as the Boss Rush.
 * 3) ** The stomps won't happen in the Mom fight.
 * 4) ** Stomps count as explosions, so or provide immunity to them.
 * 5) **Stomps break rocks and damage enemies. If the player has and a lot of patience, the stomps will eventually clear rooms.
 * 6) **Stomps will open secret rooms.
 * 7) * On XL floors, only the last boss must be defeated. The Emperor Card allows the first boss to be skipped.
 * 8) * Once the Broken Shovel is picked up, it must not be replaced by another active item. If it is on an item pedestal when Isaac leaves the room, it will disappear.
 * 9) ** If Isaac has, another active item can still be carried safely.
 * 10) *If playing in Co-op, Mom will only target the player with the Broken Shovel. If this character dies, the stomps will stop, and if they are resurrected, the stomps continue. If you beat Mom while the character holding the Broken Shovel is dead, the Boss Rush door is closed and the Womb entrance is sealed. If you have a card/pill/item that allows for teleportation, returning to Boss Room fixes this bug.
 * 11) Next, clear Boss Rush. This will grant the second piece of the, completing.
 * 12) * The Broken Shovel must be held when the boss rush is beaten. Otherwise, only a normal boss rush completion item will drop.
 * 13) * After defeating Mom, if it is unlocked only will spawn, otherwise a standard boss item will spawn.
 * 14) * If is not unlocked you must use a Sacrifice Room to proceed to, you are not guaranteed to be able to do this on every run.
 * 15) * The normal 20-minute time limit to reach Boss Rush does not apply. The hole to after Mom will be sealed until the Boss Rush is completed.
 * 16) * After Mom's Shovel is acquired, Mom's feet will stop attempting to stomp Isaac.
 * 17) Finally, a single Grave Room with a dirt patch in its center will appear in the . Using Mom's Shovel while standing on the dirt patch unlocks The Forgotten.
 * 18) * If the Grave Room is exited before the soul reaches the top of the screen, The Forgotten may not unlock.
 * 19) * Holding Mom's Shovel prevents the beam of light to the Cathedral from appearing, forcing Isaac into the trapdoor to.
 * 20) * If stuck, confused, or frustrated, check the page for tips and help.

Item Interactions
Many items have unique interactions with The Forgotten's bone club or The Soul and The Forgotten's unique health system. The Soul's tears are affected normally.
 * : Grants 2 black hearts to The Soul and empties The Forgotten's bone hearts, but doesn't remove them.
 * : Empty bone hearts increase damage, but the damage buff is removed if the bone heart breaks.
 * : When the bone club hits the prism, the prism fires 4 bone clubs while the original bone club travels back to The Forgotten. The bone club will quadruple when passing through prism whether traveling away from or back towards The Forgotten. However, bone clubs fired from the prism will travel and spread out very quickly, making it hard to hit enemies with them unless they are close to the prism.
 * : The bone's melee attack will linger in place briefly and can damage enemies, or even pick up items that move into the arc. Will not damage enemies more than once per swing. The throw is unaffected.
 * Anti-Gravity + Mom's Knife: As Mom's Knife allows hitting enemies more than once in a single swing, with Anti-Gravity it will hit enemies up to 4 times. The throw is unaffected.
 * : The Soul is unchained and free to move. It can leave The Forgotten behind and leave the room, and switching back teleports to the skeletal body even from hostile, closed rooms.
 * : The Forgotten has a 50% chance for Blood Clot effects to apply to melee or ranged attack. When Blood Clot effects are applied the bone will turn red.
 * Bookworm: Bookworm transformation will make the bone swing go twice sometimes.
 * : The charged attack will spawn a Brimstone ball which will float in front of The Forgotten for a few seconds before disappearing. The Forgotten will still melee attack while performing this action.
 * : The bone grows in size and damage as it is charged, but it cannot be thrown. Unlike regular tears, the bone swing cannot be spammed by rapidly tapping the attack button.
 * /: Smaller bone shots appear whenever an enemy is hit with the melee attack. The throw is unaffected.
 * : Takes two/one (version dependant) soul or black hearts and gives a bone heart if used in Soul form. If The Soul runs out of hearts this way, it will not cause death but instead just automatically swap back to The Forgotten.
 * : The Forgotten's bone toss attack is replaced with multiple rapid melee attacks, the number depending on how long the attack buttons are held.
 * : Makes it harder to keep The Forgotten's bone heart containers, since every red hearts on the floor will be collected and transformed into soul hearts, which can only be used by The Soul.
 * : The crown activates at one full bone heart.
 * : Sets The Forgotten's bone hearts or The Soul's soul hearts to 1 depending on which form The Forgotten is in when picking the item up. If it's picked up as The Soul, The Forgotten is healed by 1 red heart.
 * Each successful hit with the bone club will increase the damage multiplier.
 * The damage will only increase once during the swing, before resetting when the swing completes. This is most likely a bug.
 * : The green aura will become active when using melee and charging throw attack.
 * : A live bomb will spawn on top of The Forgotten when he starts charging his attack. The Forgotten will toss bombs after releasing the charge, airborne bombs deal 1.5× his damage if they collide with an enemy with enough speed. Max distance is obtained with minimal charge. If the bomb explodes while charging, a normal ranged bone attack happens after releasing it. The melee is unaffected.
 * : The charge attack is replaced by a missile in The Forgotten's hand and a crosshair that may be moved. The missile is thrown at the crosshair when all attack buttons are released, with an additional melee swing in the same direction. Unlike Dr. Fetus, the missile can be held indefinitely without exploding in his hand. The melee attack is unaffected.
 * : Adds a chance for melee or throw to do triple damage. Attacks will not split into burst bone clubs or be able to kill normally unkillable enemies.
 * : As the Evil Eye projectile launches, it mimics The Forgotten's melee attack. After launching an Evil Eye projectile as The Forgotten and switching to The Soul, the Evil Eye projectile will continue the melee attack from The Forgotten. After launching an Evil Eye projectile as The Soul and switching to The Forgotten, the Evil Eye projectile will fire bones.
 * : The Forgotten's club swing can attach explosives.
 * The short range of the club also increases the risk of attached explosives detonating and damaging the player.
 * Extension Cord: The Forgotten's body is treated as a familiar while controlling The Soul, causing electricity to bounce to it.
 * : No effect on The Forgotten's bone club.
 * : No effect on The Forgotten's bone club.
 * /: The familiars will fire smaller bone shots even when The Forgotten uses their charged attack.
 * : Melee and throw have a chance to inflict burning. However, neither melee nor throw attacks trigger the explosive effect.
 * : The bone bounces on the ground a few times when thrown.
 * : The explosion effect may activate on melee attacks. Unlike with actual Ipecac, the explosion will not hurt The Forgotten.
 * : The familiars spawned will attack with a club like The Forgotten.
 * : Only the active character's health is affected: The Forgotten is set to one empty bone heart and The Soul is set to half a soul heart.
 * : Fire is occasionally spawned while attacking or charging.
 * : Gives The Forgotten's bone homing when thrown, but does not grant an aura.
 * /: The Forgotten cannot use either of these items, as neither bone hearts or soul/black hearts qualify for them.
 * : A burst of blood shots appears whenever an enemy is hit with the melee attack. The throw is unaffected. Size and reach of the melee attack are increased.
 * : Head of the Keeper will not work with either the melee attack or throw.
 * : The melee and ranged attack can create beams of light.
 * Homing tears: The thrown bone homes in on enemies.
 * : Every melee swing has a chance to create an orbiting bone tear.
 * : The Forgotten's melee attack will trigger an explosion when it makes contact with an enemy, but The Forgotten will not be harmed by it. This does not make The Forgotten impervious to other types of explosions.
 * Ipecac + : The Forgotten will be healed by the explosion whenever they hit an enemy.
 * /Blood Donation Machines: Will empty bone hearts without destroying them while in skeletal form.
 * : Both the melee and thrown attacks cause 1-2 arcs of electricity to zap out when they hit an enemy.
 * : The Forgotten launches a quick series of melee attacks after firing the kidney stone.
 * : No effect on The Forgotten's bone club.
 * : No effect on The Forgotten's bone club.
 * Every 15 swings with the club results in a barrage of bones to be fired from The Forgotten's body.
 * : Barring combinations with other items, The Forgotten's heavy attack rate penalty is mitigated but all other stats consequently become lower. The Soul is less affected, gaining a small all stats up from the speed bonus.
 * : The club arcs occasionally turn black, but they do not instantly kill enemies.
 * : The Forgotten holds four bones, one in each cardinal direction. There is a chance for the melee or throw attacks to be triggered in all cardinal directions.
 * : The melee attack can deflect enemy shots. Deflected shots may hit enemies for fairly small damage depending on the enemy shot's size.
 * : The large tear will follow The Forgotten. It can be hit with the melee attack to propel it, which also increases its damage.
 * The Ludovico Technique + : Creates a second large tear when the first tear touches Multidimensional Baby.
 * : The melee attack is unaffected regardless of range. The bone toss attack does extra damage from further away.
 * : The Forgotten will get stat upgrades but is otherwise unaffected.
 * : The Forgotten holds two bones, one behind and one in front. There is a chance for the melee or throw attacks to be triggered in both directions.
 * : The knife will attach to The Forgotten's bone club, forming a scythe. Increases the size of both the melee swing and the bone throw, and allows a single melee swing to deal damage to an enemy twice instead of just once. +4 damage.
 * : The Forgotten's bone toss attack is replaced by a typical Monstro's Lung shot, though the tears are all bones.
 * : The Forgotten will get stat upgrades but is otherwise unaffected.
 * : Throwing the bone creates a trail of damaging green creep.
 * : Smaller bone shots and normal split tears appear whenever an enemy is hit with the melee attack. The bone throw will cause smaller bone shots to appear when it hits an enemy.
 * : No effect on The Forgotten's bone club.
 * : The bone club becomes a lot larger, causing hits to cover a larger area.
 * : No effect on The Forgotten's bone club.
 * : Damage is doubled for melee, while damage reduces normally with range when thrown.
 * : No effect on The Forgotten's bone club.
 * Hitting an enemy with The Forgotten's bone club can mark them
 * : No effect on The Forgotten's bone club.
 * ////: The swap key must be double tapped to switch active items/consumables.
 * : No effect on The Forgotten's bone club.
 * Hitting an enemy with The Forgotten's bone club can create a sticky booger like normal tears.
 * Size Up pills cause The Forgotten's bone club to become a lot larger.
 * : The bone's melee attack is extremely fast and the charge for throwing is short.
 * : Sprinkler fires bone tears that do The Forgotten's tear damage without the multiplier.
 * : Melee will attract pickups and throw will attract enemies to the bone club making them easier to kill.
 * : Increases damage. Melee swings and throws occasionally turn yellow but no other effect.
 * : A laser ring will appear around The Forgotten whenever he swings, and a laser is fired between The Forgotten and the bone club whenever it is thrown.
 * Technology + : Size of the laser ring is doubled.
 * : A laser ring appears around the bone club whenever it is thrown.
 * Tech X + : The laser ring appears around the brimstone ball instead.
 * Tech X + : The laser ring appears around the thrown bomb instead.
 * : Lasers occasionally fire when using melee or charging throw.
 * : No effect on The Forgotten's bone club.
 * : Thrown bone club destroys rocks.
 * : The bone throw now spins around in a circle and can be thrown further than normal with range upgrades.
 * : No effect on The Forgotten's bone club.
 * : Fires ten bone tears in all directions that deal high damage.
 * : The Forgotten wields two clubs, one in each hand, pointing diagonally outwards.

Trivia

 * The Forgotten's starting health is listed as "-1" on the character selection screen.
 * The Forgotten is Isaac's withered body.
 * The Forgotten's concept is confirmed to have originally been an old concept for a direct sequel to The Binding of Isaac: Rebirth.
 * With 20 damage or more, The Forgotten's melee attack will shake the screen.