Steam’s Latest Hit Game Is All About Screwing Around With Poker’s Rules

Developer LocalThunk and publisher Playstack have revealed that their game, Balatro, has sold over 250,000 copies within its first 72 hours of release across all platforms.

Balatro is a poker-inspired roguelike card game where players combine unique Joker cards. There are over 150 different types of Joker cards that hold different abilities, along with five potential variants of each Joker, thus adding even more versatility to your deck.

The game is presented in a colorful CRT fuzz aesthetic with hand-crafted pixel art. It also features a synthwave soundtrack that allows players to become immersed in its weird world.

Balatro is available for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Nintendo Switch, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S. It has garnered positive reviews and currently sits on Metacritic with a score of 89.

The start of 2024 has been promising to smaller developers, as games like Helldivers 2 and Palworld have become huge successes. Helldivers 2 had to increase its server capacity in order to to meet its overwhelmingly popularity demand, while Palworld has recently reached over 25 million players within a month of its release.