Balatro developer talks crunch, quality of life and how the big 2025 update will enrich the game

When a video game becomes an instant hit, things can sometimes get weird — strange glitches in the communication with the audience, for example, or glitches in the code that cause people to abandon the experience en masse. Luckily for Balatrothe popular poker-inspired roguelike currently available on Steam and modern consoles, it’s been pretty chill. People keep drawing cards, buying jokers, and racking up insanely high scores. But that doesn’t mean LocalThunkthe game’s sole developer is resting on its laurels.

On Wednesday, LocalThunk announced that Balatro‘s “first major gameplay update” is due out sometime in 2025. We were able to get the developer on a video conference the next day, and while we still don’t know what’s coming in the update (trust me, I asked), we were a little behind on LocalThunk’s process for creating it. Fans shouldn’t expect it to feel like a sequel. There also won’t be a big button in the main menu with options to “New” Balatro” And “Old Balatro.” It’s still the same game, with the same kind of front-end. But, LocalThunk said, it’s going to feel a lot bigger than the game that launched in February 2024.

“It won’t be fundamentally different,” LocalThunk told Polygon. “You’ll still BalatroI don’t want this game to be two games, and then one day it changes.

“I still have a really strong vision,” he continued, “so I’m just thinking about expanding that vision to, I guess, its logical limits rather than shifting directions into another type of game that I also enjoy. I’m definitely thinking more about filling the design space that’s there now and then expanding that design space in interesting directions that I think people will love.”

Will there be more wild cards in the game? Smart money says yes, yes they will. And maybe we will see them even sooner than next year. On X, the official account of the game also hinted at “two more surprises” coming later this summer. But what LocalThunk wants fans to understand is that all of these add-ons and tweaks coming to Balatro will be 100% free — guaranteed.

Why? First of all, it’s just good marketing.

“People are going to play it again,” LocalThunk said. “They’re bringing new people into the game. It might sell more copies that way. Who knows? But the first point is I think the most important for me, and I think it fits with the whole ethos of this game: I never want microtransactions or anything like that in the game. I love that it has one price tag, and you get the whole designed experience for that price.”

Fans clearly love that ethic too, as evidenced by something like $20 millionWhat the future of BalatroLocalThunk said he looks forward to working on the game for many years to come. But finding the joy in that work will be key to his continued involvement with the project.

“I’ve been making games for 10 years, always after school when I was in college, or after work. It was a hobby,” LocalThunk said. “Then it suddenly became my job, and there were no boundaries anymore. At some point I was working 12 or 14 hours a day, every day, and my health really started to suffer. (…) It was absolutely unsustainable.”

The experience of almost having a burnout but not quite crossing that line has given LocalThunk a different perspective.

“I’m not going to work on this if I don’t enjoy it anymore,” LocalThunk said. “I think that’s fair (to expect from a creator). I’m not going to keep working on it if I hate it, because then it’s just not good.”

And what about the version of Balatro coming to mobile devices? It’s still in the works, LocalThunk confirmed. When there’s more to report, he said fans can hear about it via the game’s official feed at XTo provide more direct feedback, consider the official Disagreement.