Tutorial
Updated
How to play The Binding of Isaac Afterbirth on Wii U (USA Only)
Good evening. Today I'd like to show you how to play a beta version of The Binding of Isaac Afterbirth on Wii U.
This requires you have hacked your Wii U, obviously. If you haven't done that, I recommend visiting http://wiiu.hacks.guide/.
Because using custom DLC like this requires CFW/Sigpatches, Haxchi or Coldboot Haxchi is highly recommended.
TL;DR version:
Afterbirth, an expansion DLC for Rebirth released and was supposed to come to Wii U, The head of Nicalis, Tyrone Rodriguez, after making disparaging comments about the Wii U, teased that it would, but it never released. The final release version of just the USA version of the game included a second executable for launching the game into Afterbirth if the DLC game content is present. The actual content was never released but it was discovered by @Dr.Aardvark that the game uses known formats and that it is possible to use open source tools to extract the content from the PC version of the game and pack it into an installable WUP folder for modded Wii Us. He made a guide but I thought it sucked, so I automated the process and made it significantly easier for end users to generate the DLC pack, and that brings me to this.
Download Afterbirth Wii U Builder
This is a simple windows based batch script that uses various open source tools to build a working DLC installable WUP package that enables Afterbirth out of the PC version's afterbirth.a file.
In order to use this script, you will need:
- Copy afterbirth.a from the PC version of Isaac Afterbirth into the same folder as the script.
- Make a text file with the exact name "encryptKeyWith" containing the Wii U Common Key.
- Run Build.bat and wait a while. If you get an error you probably did something wrong.
A more detailed set of instructions for the less technically inclined are included in the zip file's readme document, so feel free to check on that too if you want.
If all goes well, it will output a folder named "The Binding of Isaac Afterbirth [0005000C101A3C00]" which you can copy to your Wii U's SD card in the install folder, and install it under CFW/Sigpatches with WUP Installer GX2.
You will also need The Binding of Isaac Rebirth (USA) installed on your Wii U to make use of this DLC.
Please let me know here if you encounter any issues with the script or if you are unable to get the DLC to work in some way.
Enjoy, everyone.
F.A.Q.
Q: Afterbirth+ or Antibirth?
A: No. The only reason Afterbirth is possible is that Nicalis spent the time, money, and effort porting Afterbirth to Wii U themselves, as evidenced in above paragraphs. To make Afterbirth+ or Antibirth work on Wii U would require far more work and effort.
Q: Can you upload to <insert warez site here>?
A: No, but I'm sure someone else has or will.
Q: Can this same tactic be used to enable Afterbirth on n3DS or Vita?
A: No. Those only contain executables for Rebirth, not Afterbirth. This only works because Nicalis ported Afterbirth to Wii U themselves already- they just never released it for some reason.
Q: Why not the EUR version?
A: Majorly, the EUR version doesn't contain the "isaac-ngWiiUAB.rpl" file which is the whole reason this process is possible for the USA version, but it's worth noting that you don't want to be running the EUR version at all, as it is actually out of date by a whole update, compared to the USA release. It seems that while porting Afterbirth to Wii U they made a ton of performance optimizations that are not present in the last EUR release, that make both Rebirth and Afterbirth performance much more reasonably on the console.
Q: My game crashed! What can I do to fix it?!?
A: Nothing. This is effectively a beta version of the Wii U port of Afterbirth for Wii U. Bugs and crashes come with the territory.
Q: Does it work on Tiramisu/Aroma?
A: In my testing, unfortunately it seems like it doesn't. I'm not sure if there's a way to fix this or not, it's possible it's something to do with ram usage.
This requires you have hacked your Wii U, obviously. If you haven't done that, I recommend visiting http://wiiu.hacks.guide/.
Because using custom DLC like this requires CFW/Sigpatches, Haxchi or Coldboot Haxchi is highly recommended.
The Binding of Isaac Rebirth got DLC in 2015 on PC called "Afterbirth" that was a large expansion to the base game, including many new items, synergies, new alt stages, and new music in some cases.
This DLC later came to the PS4 and Xbox One in May of the following year, prior to this point Tyrone Rodriguez, the CEO of Nicalis, Inc had made several statements on Twitter stating "Stop lying to yourself, the Wii U is not much more powerful than a PS Vita." which made some news headlines at the time, and a lot of angry Nintendo fans as well. Months later, Tyrone posted this tweet, showing him at the top of a Daily Run (which was a new afterbirth feature) on the Wii U, and then, in March it was confirmed for release sometime "in the coming months." I have news for you, Tyrone. It's been a lot longer than a few months and it's still never released. It was later on confirmed that Afterbirth+, the next expansion, wasn't coming to Wii U but was instead confirmed to be coming to Switch.
So here we are then, Afterbirth was apparently up and running on Wii U and was planned to release, but it just never came to be.
Or did it? Well, sort of. The final update, 1.06 of Rebirth on Wii U, in the USA version only is a file named "isaac-ngWiiUAB.rpl".
Based on the name, you can see this is an RPL (Wii U Executable) for "AB" or Afterbirth. While the game executable is here, the contents, of course, are not. But are we really missing them? Isaac uses pretty standard open formats for its game data, even on consoles. And we have the afterbirth content for the PC version of the game...
Someone, specifically @Dr.Aardvark, decided to go ahead and try and recreate the data it wants using the PC version files as a base, and apparently, he achieved success. He even posted about it late last year, but the thread didn't get much traction, and honestly, as a guide, it's a bit lacking. I actually followed it nearly exactly but still had a bit of trouble getting it to work myself, but eventually I sorted it out.
While this does result in a somewhat playable version of Afterbirth, the game has several bugs and items that don't function correctly, some of which crash the game occasionally, so if you're gonna play this, don't expect perfection. This is effectively a beta version of Afterbirth on Wii U, more or less. The only known major issues are that Daily Runs do not function, as- of course, this platform does not have the required servers to support them, instead, returning an error when you make an attempt to connect.
This DLC later came to the PS4 and Xbox One in May of the following year, prior to this point Tyrone Rodriguez, the CEO of Nicalis, Inc had made several statements on Twitter stating "Stop lying to yourself, the Wii U is not much more powerful than a PS Vita." which made some news headlines at the time, and a lot of angry Nintendo fans as well. Months later, Tyrone posted this tweet, showing him at the top of a Daily Run (which was a new afterbirth feature) on the Wii U, and then, in March it was confirmed for release sometime "in the coming months." I have news for you, Tyrone. It's been a lot longer than a few months and it's still never released. It was later on confirmed that Afterbirth+, the next expansion, wasn't coming to Wii U but was instead confirmed to be coming to Switch.
So here we are then, Afterbirth was apparently up and running on Wii U and was planned to release, but it just never came to be.
Or did it? Well, sort of. The final update, 1.06 of Rebirth on Wii U, in the USA version only is a file named "isaac-ngWiiUAB.rpl".
Based on the name, you can see this is an RPL (Wii U Executable) for "AB" or Afterbirth. While the game executable is here, the contents, of course, are not. But are we really missing them? Isaac uses pretty standard open formats for its game data, even on consoles. And we have the afterbirth content for the PC version of the game...
Someone, specifically @Dr.Aardvark, decided to go ahead and try and recreate the data it wants using the PC version files as a base, and apparently, he achieved success. He even posted about it late last year, but the thread didn't get much traction, and honestly, as a guide, it's a bit lacking. I actually followed it nearly exactly but still had a bit of trouble getting it to work myself, but eventually I sorted it out.
While this does result in a somewhat playable version of Afterbirth, the game has several bugs and items that don't function correctly, some of which crash the game occasionally, so if you're gonna play this, don't expect perfection. This is effectively a beta version of Afterbirth on Wii U, more or less. The only known major issues are that Daily Runs do not function, as- of course, this platform does not have the required servers to support them, instead, returning an error when you make an attempt to connect.
TL;DR version:
Afterbirth, an expansion DLC for Rebirth released and was supposed to come to Wii U, The head of Nicalis, Tyrone Rodriguez, after making disparaging comments about the Wii U, teased that it would, but it never released. The final release version of just the USA version of the game included a second executable for launching the game into Afterbirth if the DLC game content is present. The actual content was never released but it was discovered by @Dr.Aardvark that the game uses known formats and that it is possible to use open source tools to extract the content from the PC version of the game and pack it into an installable WUP folder for modded Wii Us. He made a guide but I thought it sucked, so I automated the process and made it significantly easier for end users to generate the DLC pack, and that brings me to this.
Download Afterbirth Wii U Builder
This is a simple windows based batch script that uses various open source tools to build a working DLC installable WUP package that enables Afterbirth out of the PC version's afterbirth.a file.
In order to use this script, you will need:
- The Binding of Isaac Rebirth on PC/Steam
- The Binding of Isaac Afterbirth DLC on PC/Steam
- The Wii U Common Key (Google It!)
- A working Java runtime installed
- Copy afterbirth.a from the PC version of Isaac Afterbirth into the same folder as the script.
- Make a text file with the exact name "encryptKeyWith" containing the Wii U Common Key.
- Run Build.bat and wait a while. If you get an error you probably did something wrong.
A more detailed set of instructions for the less technically inclined are included in the zip file's readme document, so feel free to check on that too if you want.
If all goes well, it will output a folder named "The Binding of Isaac Afterbirth [0005000C101A3C00]" which you can copy to your Wii U's SD card in the install folder, and install it under CFW/Sigpatches with WUP Installer GX2.
You will also need The Binding of Isaac Rebirth (USA) installed on your Wii U to make use of this DLC.
Please let me know here if you encounter any issues with the script or if you are unable to get the DLC to work in some way.
Enjoy, everyone.
F.A.Q.
Q: Afterbirth+ or Antibirth?
A: No. The only reason Afterbirth is possible is that Nicalis spent the time, money, and effort porting Afterbirth to Wii U themselves, as evidenced in above paragraphs. To make Afterbirth+ or Antibirth work on Wii U would require far more work and effort.
Q: Can you upload to <insert warez site here>?
A: No, but I'm sure someone else has or will.
Q: Can this same tactic be used to enable Afterbirth on n3DS or Vita?
A: No. Those only contain executables for Rebirth, not Afterbirth. This only works because Nicalis ported Afterbirth to Wii U themselves already- they just never released it for some reason.
Q: Why not the EUR version?
A: Majorly, the EUR version doesn't contain the "isaac-ngWiiUAB.rpl" file which is the whole reason this process is possible for the USA version, but it's worth noting that you don't want to be running the EUR version at all, as it is actually out of date by a whole update, compared to the USA release. It seems that while porting Afterbirth to Wii U they made a ton of performance optimizations that are not present in the last EUR release, that make both Rebirth and Afterbirth performance much more reasonably on the console.
Q: My game crashed! What can I do to fix it?!?
A: Nothing. This is effectively a beta version of the Wii U port of Afterbirth for Wii U. Bugs and crashes come with the territory.
Q: Does it work on Tiramisu/Aroma?
A: In my testing, unfortunately it seems like it doesn't. I'm not sure if there's a way to fix this or not, it's possible it's something to do with ram usage.
Last edited by CheatFreak47,
, Reason: general improvements
