Balatro Developer Says It Will Expand Popular Game in 2025 — But It Won’t Change It

When a video game becomes an instant success, sometimes strange things happen—like weird communication gaps with the audience or bugs in the code that turn people off the game en masse. Luckily for Balatropoker-inspired roguelike hit, currently available on Steam and current consoles, things have been pretty peaceful. People are still drawing cards, buying jokers, and getting ridiculously high scores. But that doesn’t mean LocalThunkthe sole creator of the game, rested on his laurels.

On Wednesday, LocalThunk announced that BalatroThe “first major gameplay update” is set to release in 2025. We managed to get the developer on a video conference the next day, and while we still don’t know what’s in the update (believe me, I asked), we did aid LocalThunk a bit in its development. Fans shouldn’t expect it to feel like a sequel. Likewise, there won’t be a substantial button on the main menu with “New Balatro” And “Old Balatro.” It will still be the same game, with the same kind of front-end. However, as LocalThunk said, it will feel much bigger than the game that launched in February 2024.

“I still have a very strong vision,” he continued, “so I’m thinking about expanding that vision, I think to its logical limits, rather than just going in a different direction to a different type of game that I also like. I’m definitely thinking more about filling the design space that currently exists and then expanding that design space in interesting directions that I think people will love.”

Will there be more jokers in the game? The wise financiers say yes, yes, there will be. And maybe we’ll see them even sooner than next year. X, official game account also teased “two more surprises” coming later this summer. But LocalThunk wants fans to understand that all of these additions and fixes are coming Balatro will be 100% free – we guarantee it.

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

“People will start playing it again,” LocalThunk said. “They’ll bring new people into the game. Maybe it’ll sell more copies that way. Who knows? But I think the first point is the most important to me and it fits the whole ethos of the game: I don’t want any microtransactions or anything like that in the game. I like that it’s just one price, and for that price you get the whole experience that was designed.”

The fans clearly love this ethic too, as you can see from something like this 20 million dollarsAs for the future BalatroLocalThunk said he looks forward to working on the game for many more years to come. However, finding joy in the work will be key to his continued involvement in the project.

This experience, close to but not beyond burnout, allowed LocalThunk to see things from a different perspective.

What about the version? Balatro that will come to mobile devices? We’re still working on it, LocalThunk confirmed. He said that when there’s more to announce, fans should expect information via the game’s official channel on XTo provide more direct feedback, please consider the official ones Discord.