Just like Tetris, someone's found Balatro's "true ending" by chasing a score so high that it actually crashes the game

Someone has finally 'beat' Balatro, wiping those jokers' smug smiles away, by achieving a score so high that it actually crashed the poker-themed roguelike.

Streamer Nandre broke the "high score limit" in the game a few days ago, but he's more recently one-upped himself while on stream. In the clip below, after passing ante 39, you can see Nandre reach a score so high that it forces the screen to glitch and white-noised cards to fly about the screen. I'm not good enough at Balatro to know what build he's rocking, but whatever it is, Nandre's hand of cards is too big to even be visible. The glitch continues until the game properly crashes and leaves us all staring at a blank screen.

"You cannot go any higher than this," Nandre says on stream. "This is literally the maximum ante you can go in the game without mods. The true ending of Balatro has been claimed. Now I can rest..."

Balatro's 'true ending' echoes what happened with Tetris NES recently, which didn't have any proper finale coded in the form of credits and a congratulatory message. Instead, 34 years after its release, a 13-year-old block-turning prodigy made history when he became the first person in the world to reach Tetris' kill screen by obtaining a score so high, the game's code becomes too unstable too even continue running. Balatro's ending is weirdly poetic in that way.

Developer Localthunk's surprise hit made headlines recently for more than its ending, though. The Game Awards 2024 might have predictably given most of the trophies to games with millions of dollars behind them, but Balatro took home the gold in three categories regardless: Best Indie Game, Best Debut Indie, and Best Mobile Game. As of this week, Balatro's crossover cosmetics now also includes everything from Divinity: Original Sin to 1000xResist.

Balatro creator says the business aspect of making his hit roguelike is still something he’s “learning the ropes” of.