Balatro has been a mega hit, having recently reached the 5 million copies sold mark, and for now its lead developer isn’t rushing to move on.
We all know that Balatro is one of the best games of 2024, and at the end of last month it had managed to reach 5 million copies sold, a pretty ridiculous number for most games. Now, speaking to Bloomberg, developer LocalThunk shared what the success has felt like, and what comes next. “It’s been a lot of stress, but very fulfilling, being able to walk on something that I love all day, every day, as long as I want,” LocalThunk said. “We’d been living below our means anyway when I had that IT job, so our lifestyle hasn’t changed all that much. I travel a little more so I can visit friends. I’m just trying to be responsible right now with anything. I still have a job to do.”
All of you Balatro-heads will also be quite happy to hear that a 1.1 version of Balatro is on the way too, which will apparently include some new features, though LocalThunk didn’t want to go into details too heavily. “I’m not going to get into exactly what’s going to be in it, because that also means I can’t pivot if something new doesn’t work. I think it’s healthier for the game that I keep my cards close to my chest, then give you the best version of whatever this new content update is.”
A couple of small details that he did share, though, is that the confusing Matador Joker will be getting an overhaul, and that the blue stake challenge modifier will be seeing some kind of change too (alongside a whole bunch of other tweaks and such). After that, though, LocalThunk isn’t too sure what comes next; “I get obsessed with something for a long time,” he said. “I don’t have any imminent game ideas I want to make. I have thought of other game ideas in the past, but every time my mind goes down that road, I immediately think, ‘You can’t do that right now, you’re in the middle of something else,’ which I think has served me very well.”
I think considering the amount of hours most people have and will continue to put into Balatro means that that’s just fine. Though if you are looking for something new, you could always play some of LocalThunk’s favourite games from 2024.