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.
So uh Balatro is now canonically in Black Mirror https://t.co/QCrvHShTpuApril 10, 2025
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.
