Balatro, the devilishly addictive roguelike deckbuilder, has now passed the two million sales milestone across all platforms. The game, almost entirely made by someone known only as LocalThunk, has been a big success critically, and we can safely say it's been a commercial hit too.
The game sees players drawing cards and playing poker hands to score points, but it throws in hundreds of variables that you can use to make your deck more powerful. Joker cards can fundamentally change how you approach each round, while numerous other elements upgrade your playing cards in all kinds of crazy ways. If you line everything up just right, you can create absolutely ludicrous strategies that are incredibly satisfying to pull off.
To celebrate this sales milestone, LocalThunk has begun teasing a trio of upcoming announcements related to Balatro. Each of these will be revealed in turn, with the first having already been unveiled — a major gameplay update that will bring "new ideas and strategies" to the game. This will launch in 2025, free for all players.
We're looking forward to learning what the latter two announcements are, but this big update is exciting enough already. Are you one of the two million+ playing Balatro? Reveal your hand in the comments section below.
Comments 9
Fantastically addictive game! A well deserve success!
Dont regret buying the game, put a good number of hours in (helped by the convenience of the Portal) but feel I’m done with it long before I’ve got the platinum. It’s just a bit too RNG for me. Maybe these new modes will reignite my interest.
Love stories like this. Solo Dev working after hours on a game. Expects to sell maybe a few thousand copies and go back to his IT job but instantly becomes a millionaire. Such a well deserved achievement for one of a truly unique game.
Can't wait to play this, got my physical copy on pre order which I think arrives next month
I bloody love this game. Not convinced I'll ever finish a Gold stake deck, but I'll keep foolishly hoping!
@Mostik same here. Whilst I've been lured away from other f2p games of late (more because of attention deficit), I double dipped on a switch physical copy for the train... looking forward to having the portability of it, as well as having a new shiny thing toward my switch collection and supporting the dev twice over for a game that is both rewarding and annoying in equal measure!
So deserved, I frikkin love this game. If my GOTY is decided on hours played alone this will 100% be it. I’ve recommended it to anyone who will listen and even bought it as birthday steam gift for one mate who was taking too long to buy it himself. Beyond happy it’s been a runaway success for LocalThunk and can’t wait to see what the future holds for him.
This is probably GOTY. It’s one of the most impressively designed systems I’ve ever seen. This is what you get when a dev genuinely understands exactly what a game is, exactly what makes them tick and exactly how to conjoin luck, memory and tactics. I really hope it encourages devs to really design game mechanics to this level of depth.
It's not for me, but really happy for the dev.
Also, love it when something is successful that shows we don't all games to be huge, $300 million productions.
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