“Geralt is now in Balatro,” we wrote yesterday after the Friends of Jimbo update was announced, a major cosmetic crossover that brought The Witcher 3, Dave the Diver, Among Us, and Vampire Survivors to the game. But Geralt in Balatro—how does something like that even happen? It turns out that if you make a really frigid game that everyone loves, some people just want to work with you—and a lot of people at CD Projekt are huge Balatro fans.
“I often evangelize video games at work” – Global PR Director at CD Projekt Radek Grabowski he tweeted (By GamesRadar). “I did it with Balatro, bringing a lot of colleagues on board, including the amazing people who run CDPR partnerships. In the meantime, a friend at Playstack sent me the idea that would become Friends of Jimbo. Perfect timing—the rest is history.”
Grabowski also revealed that the Witcher 3 Balatro card backs were created by a CD Projekt artist Olgierd Ciszakwho previously worked on Gwent, BloodThronebreaker, and Cyberpunk 2077.
The Witcher cards for Balatro were created by one of CD PROJEKT RED’s talented artists, Olgierd Ciszak. ✨ They are real gems and I love them. pic.twitter.com/tV8M1I1J0LAugust 27, 2024
“Working on this was an incredible experience,” Grabowski said. he tweeted“Having done PR in the video game industry for over 10 years, seeing this collaboration come to fruition was truly inspiring. Five gaming companies all working towards the same goal, driven by passion and friendship. Thank you, friends!”
Playstack PR manager Wout van Halderen, who may or may not have been the friend Grabowski mentioned, described the collaboration as a “career highlight.”
“The industry may be competitive, but behind it all there are people who love games, and that shared passion makes this type of collaboration possible” – van Halderen he tweeted.
Poncle’s chief partnership officer, Geo Morgan, also saluted everyone involved, saying, “it was really wonderful.” Grabowski seemed to agree.
It’s wonderful, isn’t it? This is clearly just the beginning: Balatro publisher Playstack has said that the Friends of Jimbo update is just the first in a planned series of cosmetic crossovers, with more cards being released this year. This is yet another Balatro teaser in a trio that was promised earlier in August, following the announcement of a major Balatro gameplay update due in 2025, and of course the Friends of Jimbo update — we’ll let you know when we find out.
