"Catch my goofy a** card game in the new season": LocalThunk celebrates as Balatro appears in Black Mirror season 7, months after its creator proclaimed his love for the roguelike

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Black Mirror creator Charlie Brooker is a huge Balatro fan

Balatro
(Image credit: Playstack)

Anyone still hopelessly engrossed in Balatro might do a bit of a double-take when they catch up on the latest season of Black Mirror because there's an Easter egg for LocalThunk's hit roguelike to look out for.

If you've not watched Black Mirror's seventh season yet, don't worry, you're not going to find any spoilers here. Alternatively, if you've already watched the whole thing and thought Balatro had taken over your brain to the point that you're now imagining it everywhere you look, then no, that moment hasn't arrived (yet). As of the third episode, Hotel Reverie, as LocalThunk puts it: "Balatro is now canonically in Black Mirror."

As you can see below, this isn't just a blink and you'll miss it, hidden in the background reference – the game is on full display on a laptop screen, front and center. "Catch my goofy ass card game in the new season of Black Mirror," LocalThunk writes on Bluesky.

While it's certainly a nice surprise to see the game show up, perhaps we should have seen it coming. Last August, Black Mirror creator Charlie Brooker revealed himself as an enormous Balatro fan, noting that he plays it "in short bursts when I'm writing to reward myself." He also predicted that "humankind's activity is going to drop about 25%" when the mobile ports launched, and he probably wasn't too far off the mark with that figure.

Balatro has had quite the week – even before its Black Mirror appearance, it took home a BAFTA award for the best Debut Game, which was accepted by Final Fantasy 16's Clive actor Ben Starr, dressed as Jimbo the Joker. It was a very fun (if not weird) moment, even though the game's developer wasn't the one on stage accepting the award. "So what if my only contribution to Balatro was that trailer and a bit of sucking on a banana for a few seconds?" Starr asked. It was a very important contribution, to be fair.

Wildly successful Balatro publisher says more indie devs need funding "that isn't based on making a ridiculous amount of money back."

Catherine Lewis
Catherine Lewis
Deputy News Editor

I'm GamesRadar+'s Deputy News Editor, working alongside the rest of the news team to deliver cool gaming stories that we love. After spending more hours than I can count filling The University of Sheffield's student newspaper with Pokemon and indie game content, and picking up a degree in Journalism Studies, I started my career at GAMINGbible where I worked as a journalist for over a year and a half. I then became TechRadar Gaming's news writer, where I sourced stories and wrote about all sorts of intriguing topics. In my spare time, you're sure to find me on my Nintendo Switch or PS5 playing through story-driven RPGs like Xenoblade Chronicles and Persona 5 Royal, nuzlocking old Pokemon games, or going for a Victory Royale in Fortnite.

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