New Pocketpair-published horror game turns Balatro's live-action Jimbo actor into a jester again, devs insist it's "accidental," really: "No one will believe that we genuinely didn't mean to do this"

Final Fantasy 16 and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 actor Ben Starr has lent his talents to horror game Dead Take, and although one moment in it appears to be a direct nod to his other iconic role as Balatro's live-action Jimbo, the devs insist the apparent reference was "genuinely accidental."

Dead Take – the latest game from Tales of Kenzera: ZAU studio Surgent Studios, and the first game to be published by the Palworld devs' publishing arm, Pocketpair Publishing – launched at the end of last month, and it didn't take long for players to spot the moment in question.

The coincidence was highlighted in a video from streamer and content creator TadpoledRin, who shares a clip of them cautiously turning the handle of a jack-in-a-box, only to be jumpscared by a jester popping out of it, with a picture of Starr (or rather, his live-action character of Vinny Monroe) pinned to its face. "Balatro!" TadpoledRin declares, after recovering from the scare.

Responding to this, the official Surgent Studios Twitter account says that "no one will believe that we genuinely didn't mean to do this," before digging up evidence from "the moment we realized" in late July.

A series of messages from the studio's Slack chat shows one dev sharing a screenshot of the in-game jester alongside an image of Starr at this year's BAFTA Games Awards, dressed in full Jimbo attire. "This is the most incredible happy accident that just dawned on us," they wrote at the time, with their fellow devs responding "HOW HAVE WE NOT REALIZED THIS" and "if I had known I would have matched the colors and outfit."

Back to the present day, and Dead Take creative director and founder of Surgent Studios Abubakar Salim reiterates that the whole thing was "genuinely accidental," which honestly makes the whole thing even funnier. What is it with games picturing Starr as a jester, all of a sudden? He really does rock the look, though, and to quote him from his aforementioned appearance at the BAFTA Game Awards: "This might be a rather confusing, and at first glance, suspiciously arousing moment. But don't worry, it's perfectly natural. Don't fight the feeling, Jokers have full sex now."

I thought the scariest thing about Dead Take would be its Final Fantasy and Baldur's Gate 3 stars doing American accents, but no horror game has stunned me like this since 2022.