For the quickest way to join, simply enter your email below and get access. We will send a confirmation and sign you up to our newsletter to keep you updated on all your gaming news.
Balatro creator was "shocked" at his poker roguelike's high review scores: "I don’t think I would have rated Balatro higher than an 8 and I made the damn thing"
Weekly digests, tales from the communities you love, and more
You are now subscribed
Your newsletter sign-up was successful
Want to add more newsletters?
Join the club
Get full access to premium articles, exclusive features and a growing list of member rewards.
An account already exists for this email address, please log in.
Subscribe to our newsletter
It can sometimes be difficult to accurately assess your work, and the task becomes even more arduous when you're working on an entertaining poker roguelike game. For example, Balatro creator LocalThunk was stunned to see such high review scores pouring in after the game released in 2024.
"February 19th rolls around," he recalls in a detailed timeline posted to his blog. "The 19th is the review embargo day, and [publisher] Playstack did a truly exceptional job getting this game in the hands of traditional media to write their reviews before launch."
"I didn't know what to expect," LocalThunk continues. "This was a pretty weird game after all. Average ratings of 6 or 7?"
Article continues below
Nope. Balatro was quickly met with jackpot numbers across the board, shooting up to a 90 score on Metacritic, which it has since maintained.
"I am shocked. That rating doesn't make any sense," LocalThunk remembers thinking. "I don't think I would have rated Balatro higher than an 8, and I made the damn thing."
The game gathered 208,401 wishlists on Steam by its launch day, but LocalThunk couldn't get it out of his head that his avalanche of success would all come crashing down.
"I fully anticipated the sky to fall and for me to be working 24/7 to fix the inevitable disaster," he says, remembering that he was gearing up to be "patching like a madman" for a full month after Balatro's launch.
Sign up to the GamesRadar+ Newsletter
Weekly digests, tales from the communities you love, and more
"I told my partner that I won’t be making any plans until the end of March," he remembers.
But LocalThunk was underestimating himself again; Balatro launched with negligible bugs, and its first few hours generated over $600,000, so LocalThunk had no choice but to reward himself with some burgers and champagne. If there's one thing that's easy to predict, it's one's inevitable need for burgers and champagne.
Ashley is a Senior Writer at GamesRadar+. She's been a staff writer at Kotaku and Inverse, too, and she's written freelance pieces about horror and women in games for sites like Rolling Stone, Vulture, IGN, and Polygon. When she's not covering gaming news, she's usually working on expanding her doll collection while watching Saw movies one through 11.
You must confirm your public display name before commenting
Please logout and then login again, you will then be prompted to enter your display name.
Join The Community
