Balatro 1.1 shows its hand at last
LocalThunk has returned to the Balatro Discord with the first concrete details of update 1.1: at least four new Jokers, a tier 2 voucher called Lunker, and still no release date.
Update 1.1 for Balatro has been promised for so long that it has become a running joke, so it is worth spelling out what actually happened this week: the developer turned up on the game's Discord and started naming things. LocalThunk called it a “massive leak” of his own update and confirmed at least four new Jokers, a tier 2 voucher called Lunker and a new trigger that fires when a card is drawn to hand. There is still no release date, and he is not apologising for that.
What was actually confirmed
The Joker count is the headline. Having previously committed to at least two, LocalThunk has settled on at least four, and posted an image of one reportedly called Survey that, in his words, “does the thing with the face cards.” The new trigger condition is “when a card is drawn to hand”, which fires during rounds and inside Tarot and Spectral packs. His example is Ace up your Sleeve, a Joker that hands you +1 Mult whenever an Ace is drawn.
Vouchers, stakes and a switch to turn it all off
Vouchers are changing too. Lunker is the new tier 2 voucher, and the voucher draw will lean harder towards tier 2, weighted by how many tier 1 vouchers you are holding across incomplete sets. The Blue Stake rework has been reworked again, after LocalThunk scrapped an earlier version a few months ago in favour of one he says fits better. Those changes, along with the Joker additions, will apply to every player. The genuinely new material sits behind a profile checkbox instead, and the details there are unusually considerate: achievements stay earnable with it switched off, and Steam will keep a selectable 1.0 branch after the update ships so the mods built on it do not break overnight.
After 1.1, that is your lot
Expect 1.1.0, then a 1.1.1 pass a month or two later “for balance tweaks and changes after player feedback”. “That’s likely it,” LocalThunk wrote. “Don’t expect any more than that.” There will be no 1.2, and Balatro is not getting a multiplayer mode. He also conceded that he should never have given a date for the update while he was the only person working on the game, and that nobody had asked him for one.
Our opinion
The most impressive thing about this update is the restraint attached to it. A studio sitting on a hit roguelike and a hungry audience could ship a roadmap, a season pass and an anniversary edition painted gold, and plenty do. LocalThunk is promising four Jokers, a voucher and a balance pass, and then stopping. “I don’t want this to be half baked and wreck Balatro,” he wrote. “I love the game too and I want to play a fun game not a rushed botch job.” That is the correct answer to a delay, and an opt-out checkbox with a 1.0 branch kept alive for mods tells you where the priorities really sit. The caveat is that one developer with the best intentions is still a single point of failure, and a game this successful will keep asking him for more than one more patch. On this evidence, at least, he knows how to say no.