Even Balatro's publisher doesn't know when LocalThunk will be done with 1.1: "Maybe I should whisper in his ear, like, 'So how's those 200 new jokers coming?'"

Balatro 1.1 is on the way, and at the Game Developers Conference this week Wout van Halderen of publisher Playstack reconfirmed that it's still on track for 2025. But even the game's own publisher is in the dark about exactly when the update is coming or what'll be in it.

Our friends at PC Gamer did their best to extract what info about Balatro 1.1 they could from van Halderen, but to no avail – in part because LocalThunk himself hasn't even provided that info. I don't think he'll let us know when [Balatro 1.1] is gonna drop. He's just gonna show up one day and say, here's 100 new jokers."

That's not a confirmation of how many jokers are gonna be added in 1.1, but van Halderen has his own thoughts on how to get the info from LocalThunk. "Maybe I should whisper in his ear, like, 'So how's those 200 new jokers coming?' And then see where that goes. But I am gonna be surprised, probably just as much [as you]. I may hear it a couple days before everyone else."

LocalThunk is a game developer who values privacy, and has notably chosen not to appear in public – even to accept his wildly popular game's trophies at The Game Awards. But he has been happy to use his game's success to lift up other indie devs, noting that "I just happen to be the lucky one to be propped up."

"Balatro was a pain in the ass to market," but it started getting better once players started cracking open the demo so they could play forever.