Balatro Wants to Collab With One of 2024’s Most Popular Games

Posted by By our-little-miss-is-home December 18, 2024 50 Views 6 Min Read
Balatro Wants to Collab With One of 2024's Most Popular Games



Summary

  • Balatro hints at partnering with popular title Path of Exile 2, following past collaborations with other renowned games.
  • Balatro, an indie hit by LocalThunk, impresses with awards and sales exceeding 3.5 million copies on various platforms.



Balatro has revealed interest in partnering with a highly popular action-RPG, Path of Exile 2, which rolled out in early access recently. In the past, Balatro has teamed up with various popular games, including Cyberpunk 2077, Among Us, Vampire Survivors, and more to bring themed content for its players.

Crafted by a solo dev known as LocalThunk, Balatro is a remarkable indie game success story. The roguelike deck-building title shot up in popularity this year, after first releasing in February 2024. So far, it has sold over 3.5 million copies across console, PC, and mobile platforms. On top of that, the Playstack-published game has been on an award-winning spree with a particularly notable sweep taking place at The Game Awards 2024, where it was recognized as the Best Debut Indie Game, Best Indie Game, and Best Mobile Game. Recently, Balatro teased the possibility of collaborating with Path of Exile 2, one of 2024’s most popular titles that was recently in the news for “kicking out” Elon Musk from a game.


Showcasing the Endless Mode screen in Balatro

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While Astro Bot Is Great, I Was Rooting for Balatro for GOTY

I appreciate that Astro Bot is an incredible ode to PlayStation’s enormous catalogue, and it is one of the best new platformers and one of the most instantly-iconic brands that PlayStation has had in years, but I still think Balatro should have won GOTY at the TGA 2025. Both projects obviously come from a place of deep passion for gaming, but for my money, Balatro is going to become a certified gaming classic like Bejeweled or The Binding of Isaac within a few years, while Astro Bot may languish as a PS exclusive.Sure, it’s not the most graphically intense game, or the best story of all time, but gaming doesn’t need to always push these bars – if anything, I think we need a return to smaller games made by less people that do more interesting things, and Balatro is indicative of those winds in the industry right now. Balatro was made by one person, has an incredibly simple concept based on ideas players are familiar with, but then expands and breaks the rules of Poker to create a comp

On Twitter, Balatro announced being among the top-five most played Steam Deck titles, alongside other major hits such as Stardew Valley, Baldur’s Gate 3, Path of Exile 2, and Vampire Survivors. The tweet pointed out how each of these games’ developers were “friends of Jimbo” – which is also the namesake series of Balatro updates containing game collaborations – except Path of Exile 2 dev Grinding Gear Games. With this, the widely acclaimed game more or less confirmed interest in possibly collaborating with Path of Exile 2 in the future. Also, it’s worth noting that each of the aforementioned games from the Steam Deck’s top-five list has previously partnered with Balatro, except Baldur’s Gate 3. However, Larian Studios, the team behind Baldur’s Gate 3, still fits the bill of being a “friend of Jimbo” through another title, Divinity: Original Sin 2, whose themed content was the latest to make its way into the card game.



Balatro Reveals Interest in a Path of Exile 2 Crossover, Could Bring More Themed Cards

If Balatro‘s plans for a Path of Exile 2 crossover materialize, fans could expect to receive cosmetic additions, similar to those found in the previous Friends of Jimbo updates. For instance, the game’s Witcher 3 crossover brought card designs inspired by the latter’s characters, such as Geralt, Yennefer, and the like. While such an update doesn’t affect Balatro gameplay-wise, it offers certain players more incentive, thanks to fresh card designs.


Apart from celebrating award wins, LocalThunk has also recently been expressing his disagreement with Balatro‘s PEGI rating. Interestingly, the developer has called attention to a specific game with microtransactions receiving a kid-friendly rating as opposed to his own game getting an adult-only rating. However, it currently doesn’t seem things are going to change on that front for the indie game anytime soon.

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