The Lost is a secret character.
The Lost starts with no health and cannot gain health by any means. Therefore, it will die from any damage taken.
- The Lost starts with flight.
3DS The Lost also starts with
D4 (if unlocked).
The Lost starts with flight, spectral tears,
D4 (If unlocked), and the effect of
Holy Mantle (after donating 879 coins to the
Greed Donation Machine)
The Lost starts with flight, spectral tears,
Eternal D6, and the effect of
Holy Mantle (after donating 879 coins to the
Greed Donation Machine). This form of Holy Mantle is inherent to the character rather than being a starting item, and as such will be present when switching to The Lost in the middle of the run through the use of
Clicker, will not be present when switching away, and cannot be removed by any means.
The Lost can activate the button in Greed mode without taking damage, at the price of one less coin spawning in the next wave's reward.
The Lost can take devil deals and
Black Market items for free.
Devil deals and Black Market items are presented as choices. Taking one will despawn all other deals in the room.
- This also applies to devil deals in the first room of the
Dark Room; only one of the devil deals spawned by the chests can be taken, regardless of how many chests have been opened.
- This also applies to devil deals in the first room of the
Notes[ | ]
- Resurrection items like
Dead Cat are extremely valuable to The Lost because they are effectively the only health-ups you can get. - Devil deals, while free, still count as making a deal with the devil and will prevent
Angel Rooms from opening. Thus, a
Credit Card is still recommended, or getting 
Chaos to acquire angel room items (except broken key pieces). - Using the
IV Bag or a
Blood Donation Machine will instantly kill
The Lost even with the Holy Mantle. - Bedrooms are much more common as
The Lost due to its lack of health. While it cannot take advantage of the beds to heal, the guaranteed
Crawl Spaces in clean Bedrooms can give more opportunities for items.
If The Lost's Holy Mantle effect is lost while within a
Curse Room, closing the game, starting it up, and then continuing the run will restore the Holy Mantle's charge, allowing The Lost to leave the room unharmed.
The Lost can no longer restore his Holy Mantle by closing the game, starting it up, and then continuing the run.
Using the D4 at all is not recommended, as it will remove the Holy Mantle, making The Lost die in one hit.
After reaching
Womb, The Lost becomes slightly easier to play, because the invincibility frames from
Holy Mantle scale with the damage that would have been taken.
Holy Mantle breaking only grants one second of invincibility frames, regardless of the damage source.
Isaac will be replaced by The Lost upon starting a third victory lap; however, Victory Laps do not allow the unlocking of achievements.
Since the Lost's Holy Mantle isn't intrinsic, the Victory Lap Lost will always die from one hit unless the player has explicitly found the Holy Mantle.
The Lost starts with
Eternal D6, even before it's unlocked.
The Lost's Holy Mantle effect is intrinsic to the character once unlocked, and it can't be rerolled.
Though Devil deals and Black Market items are normally choices, there are four ways to fully or partially bypass this and collect multiple items anyway:
- Making the items free with
Credit Card, 
Coupon, or 
Mr. ME!. - Cloning the items with

Diplopia or 
Crooked Penny (all of the cloned items can be taken, but the original items will still be presented as a choice). - Making the items buyable with pennies via

Keeper's Bargain, 
Strawman, or 
A Pound of Flesh. 
Your Soul can be used to take an item.
- Making the items free with
General Strategies[ | ]
- One of the biggest issues of having no health is that many items become completely useless: items that only give health ups, only become effective upon taking damage, or cost health to use provide no benefit to The Lost.
This is alleviated by the
Eternal D6 that The Lost starts with. Eternal D6 has a chance to destroy an item instead of rerolling it, which isn't bad if it's used on a useless item. In fact, on its own, it can only yield a net positive (such as by rerolling a useless item into something useful) or neutral result, such as generating another useless item or destroying it.
- Trinkets and Items like

Brain Worm that can home-in and target enemies even at a distance are invaluable early in the game, as you do not need to place yourself directly in the enemy's attack path and
The Lost's spectral tears pass through most obstacles. - The Lost's ability to fly and
have spectral tears makes it extremely useful to take advantage of obstacles. - Anything that grants an extra life (e.g.
Dead Cat,
Guppy's Collar) is highly useful, allowing The Lost to take hits or safely use certain items that have a chance to kill him, such as 
Damocles.
Due to The Lost's ability to take 1 Devil Item for free, Devil Rooms and Angel Rooms become equally valuable, unless one is going for
Mega Satan.
Item Interactions[ | ]

Alabaster Box: Alabaster Box does not gain charges from Black Hearts. Soul Hearts still function as expected.
Birthright: Prevents items with the internal tag nolostbrfrom spawning. In practice, this automatically rerolls most items that aren't beneficial to The Lost, namely ones that only give health, flight, and/or spectral tears or activate upon taking damage.
Brittle Bones: Picking this item up will give a one-time +0.5 tears up (
+0.4 fire rate). This bonus is retained even if the item is later lost or rerolled.
Habit:
Holy Mantle will not activate the Habit's effect, making it almost completely useless since the only way that can get its effect to activate is by receiving damage, which would effectively kill the Lost or consume any available extra lives. The same is true for any items that require taking damage.
Heartbreak: The Lost has full benefit of the item. This lets him survive 4 extra hits, each hit adding 1 damage, and the 5th is fatal.
Whore of Babylon: As the Lost has no red hearts (he has half a soul heart), Whore of Babylon is constantly in effect, effectively changing into a damage and speed upgrade.
Unlocking The Lost in Afterbirth[ | ]
The Lost is unlocked by dying in a
Sacrifice Room while holding
Missing Poster.
- In order to unlock The Lost, you need to unlock Missing Poster.
- Missing Poster is unlocked by defeating
The Lamb as
Isaac.
- Looking for

Mom's Box in shops makes finding the poster easier. 
Glyph of Balance: If all of its conditions are fulfilled, it will change room clear rewards and champion drops to trinkets as long as you don't have one, greatly increasing the chances of finding the Missing Poster.
Glitter Bombs, in conjunction with a large enough or infinite source of bombs (such as a
Golden Bomb), have a small chance to drop trinkets, making it easier to find the poster.
This method got nerfed:
Glitter Bombs now have a cap on drops per floor.
- It is possible to unlock The Lost while holding
Mysterious Paper, although the probability is small since it only has a 1/4 chance to imitate the
Missing Poster.
Dead Cat and other resurrection items could be useful for extra attempts. - If Isaac happens to teleport away from the sacrifice room right as he dies, then he won't unlock The Lost.
Sacrificing health for the 12th time in a row and onwards has a 50% chance to teleport you to the
Dark Room. Make sure Isaac has no more than 11 hearts before attempting to die in the sacrifice room.
Sacrificing health for the 6th time in a row will have a 33% to teleport Isaac to the
Angel Room. If Isaac loses his last sacrifice and gets teleported to the Angel Room, he will not unlock The Lost.
Dying to spikes specifically is not required to unlock The Lost, so it is advised to use other sources of damage such as
Bombs in these cases.
Unlocking The Lost in Rebirth[ | ]
The Lost is unlocked by dying 4 times in a row, each time with a certain character dying in a certain circumstance. Deaths must be completed consecutively in the order shown below. Seeds can be used on all but the final step.
-
Isaac must die to a
Mulliboom in Chapter 1. -
Magdalene must die to her own
Bomb in Chapter 2. -
Judas must die to
Mom. Being killed by any monster spawned by Mom will spoil the entire attempt at unlocking The Lost. - Finally,
Azazel must die to
Satan. Being killed by any of the other enemies spawned by Satan or
The Fallen will spoil the entire attempt at unlocking The Lost. Using
The Bible on Satan does not count as death from Satan. Furthermore, you cannot be killed by Satan's stomp in the third phase. You must die in his second phase.
The Lost will be unlocked after completing the steps shown above.
Notes on unlocking The Lost[ | ]
- Multiple lives (for example, obtained by
Dead Cat) must be depleted before the intended death, as deaths while having extra lives do not count as a game loss. - It is highly suggested you do not take items or trinkets with a chance of reviving you after dying, such as
Guppy's Collar or
Broken Ankh, as these can spoil your attempt if unprepared. - Having any mods installed that trigger the mod flag will make The Lost unobtainable. To fix this problem, all mods have to be removed.
- The game cannot be won as any character required to unlock it when unlocking it.
- Champion versions of monsters and bosses will count for the death criteria.
- Runs can always be safely reset.
- Mom's Foot's stomp counts as explosive damage, which makes
Pyromaniac a problematic choice when trying to complete Step 3. - Picking the wrong character while unlocking him doesn't mess up the unlocking process.[1]
- Quitting and Restarting the game in the middle of the unlocking process doesn't mess it up.[1]
- Picking up
Lazarus' Rags,
Judas' Shadow, or
Ankh should be avoided. These items will revive the current character as a different one and therefore prevent the current unlock-step from being fulfilled. - Exploit: If you die during a required run, but hit the "start" button just as you die and reset before it shows Isaac's Last Will, it will not count as a death that spoils the run; instead, it counts as a restart.
File Manipulation[ | ]
By changing a file parameter, an unsuccessful try can be undone:
- Backup the file
Options.inifound in theDocuments\My Games\Binding of Isaac Rebirthby making a copy of it in the same folder.
Open the original file with Notepad and change the SteamCloud parameter in it to 0. This will disable Steam Cloud gamesaves synchronization.
- After an unsuccessful try, delete the original file and rename the backup copy with the name of the original file:
Options.ini - Repeat steps 1 after each successful run until you unlock The Lost.
- When finished, open the original file and restore the
SteamCloudparameter in it to1. This will enable Steam Cloud gamesaves synchronization again.
Helpful Seeds For Rebirth[ | ]
Unlockable Achievements[ | ]
Unlockable Starting Items[ | ]

Donate 879 Coins to the
Greed Donation Machine - Start with
Holy Mantle
Blow up 30
Slot Machine - Start with
D4
Trivia[ | ]
- The Lost's name and appearance hints that he is a ghost/soul/specter/spirit-type entity so lost it couldn't even find its way to the afterlife.
- The name could also be linked to the fact that Isaac was presumed missing by his mother (as seen in Ending 14, and the fact The Lost is unlocked using
Missing Poster), while in fact he was actually dead (as seen in Ending 17 and Ending 20).
- The name could also be linked to the fact that Isaac was presumed missing by his mother (as seen in Ending 14, and the fact The Lost is unlocked using
- When The Lost's unlock requirements were discovered through the use of data mining, Edmund McMillen and Tyrone Rodriguez both expressed their disappointment, considering it impatient and "like swallowing a hundred dollar steak in one bite".[2]
- Right before the start of a run, some images appear to hint to unlocking The Lost, including the
Missing Poster and The Lost itself.
Dying in a
Sacrifice Room while holding the
Missing Poster would yield a puzzle piece on Isaac's last will. These puzzle pieces, when put together, created the last wills of characters dying in the method used to unlock The Lost.- Before version 1.02, The Lost would die if a run was exited then continued.
- When The Lost picks up an item, tarot card, or pill, you can see its arms that do not connect to its body.
- Internally, The Lost has half a soul heart, which is hidden behind a permanent Curse of the Unknown-like effect. The singular soul heart is why The Lost can "pick up" soul hearts, black hearts, and eternal hearts. There are no ways to increase this health, though, as The Lost's health is constantly reset back to half a soul heart.
- Devil deals appear as requiring three soul hearts each, as The Lost technically only has half of an invisible soul heart. This is cosmetic only, as devil deals are still free.
The Lost can pick up soul hearts within the small timeframe of invincibility granted by
Astral Projection after getting hit.
The Lost can also do this while defying death using
Berserk!
The Lost's health was visible on the HUD in V1.7.5 but was made invisible again in V1.7.6.
A loading screen (when Isaac dreams) depicts the "Voice of God" telling Isaac's Mom to kill her son as The Lost speaking to her from the attic.- The Lost's starting health is listed as "?" on the character selection screen.
- As a secret character, The Lost does not appear on the character select screen until unlocked.
- He shares this trait with
???,
Keeper, and
The Forgotten.
- He shares this trait with
Gallery[ | ]
The Lost on the boss vs. screen prior to Repentance.
The Lost on the next floor screen prior to Repentance.
Isaac briefly appears as The Lost during the cutscene preceding The Beast.
References[ | ]
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