2024’s Greatest Roguelike Is a Must-Play on Xbox Game Pass
Overview & Key Takeaways
Balatro may look like a simple riff on poker, but beneath its simple pixel-art surface lies an engine for boundless experimentation.
In the original Star Wars, Han Solo says of the Millennium Falcon, “She might not look like much, kid. But she’s got it where it counts.” The same is also true of Balatro, the roguelike from solo developer LocalThunk that took the gaming world by storm back in 2024. It was nominated for five Game Awards and took home three, and had sold a whopping 5 million copies as of January 2025.
Balatro may look like a simple riff on poker, but beneath its pixel-art surface lies an engine for boundless experimentation. Your task is to play several poker hands of five or fewer cards to beat a score requirement that gets higher each round. There are eight antes, or levels, and each one contains three rounds. Depending on the luck of the draw, you can play any traditional poker hand you like, ranging from a simple high card to a straight flush.
It’s an old aphorism that “you can’t change the hand you’re dealt.” In Balatro, not only can you change the hand you’re dealt, your success absolutely depends on it. When you visit the in-game shop between rounds, you can buy more cards for your hand, making it lopsided with face cards. (Or threes, I guess, if you’re some kind of sicko.) And the customization doesn’t stop there. There are also tarot cards, which add extra points or increased point multipliers to the cards in your deck. Planet cards, meanwhile, increase the points you get for specific poker hands. Over time, that could mean that an easy-to-get hand like a pair actually earns you far more points than a technically better hand, like four-of-a-kind. As you progress through each ante, you’ll want to pick a lane and just run one or two hand types to maximize your score.
But it’s the jokers that allow Balatro to evolve from “poker with a gimmick” into an enchanting number-go-up machine that will captivate you for hours on end. You start each run with five joker slots, but depending on the circumstances, you can end up with plenty more than that. There are 150 different jokers in the game, and each one has a wildly different effect. Some are short-lived, like the Popcorn joker, which adds +20 to your multiplier, though the value diminishes by four points each round. Others are absurdly strong but hard to come by, like Cavendish, which adds a 3x multiplier to your entire hand.
Image: LocalThunk/Playstack via Polygon
In the early rounds, you’re free to experiment. But if you want to get past ante 8 — or beyond that into the infinite play mode that requires truly bonkers scores — you’ll need to find jokers that multiply your multiplier (like Cavendish, Gros Michel, and Baron) to send your points into the stratosphere. There are even jokers that duplicate the effects of other jokers (like Blueprint and Brainstorm). The way you organize your jokers at the top of the screen is important, too. Balatro demands that you respect the order of operations: put your points jokers to the far left, then additional mult, and then Xmult.
I’ll admit that sounds very complicated on paper, and at first, it kind of is. Early rounds of Balatro are all about learning through failure, but discovering wacky new jokers and experimenting while you vibe to the groovy tunes keeps it fun the whole time. Balatro becomes a transcendent experience once you’ve acquainted yourself with its systems enough to make you feel like you're breaking the game, even when you're playing it precisely as it was designed to be played. Despite the snarky jester Jimbo heckling you every time you lose, eventually, Balatro will make you feel like a once-in-a-generation math genius.
Image: LocalThunk/Playstack via Polygon
While Balatro is wonderful on a handheld device like a Nintendo Switch or even your phone, I would warn you against dancing with the devil in this way. This is not a game you want to bring anywhere near your bed. It will wreak absolute havoc on your sleep hygiene, even if you have a great time doing it. Taking Balatro for a spin on Xbox Game Pass is the best way to see if it clicks for you. Just don’t say I didn’t warn you.
In addition to Game Pass, Balatro is available now on Android, iOS, Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch 2, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Windows PC, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X.
