Balatro is coming to mobile to ruin your productivity

One of this year’s nice surprises for those who love playing games is Balatro, a rather unique card game where you build your deck and play illegal poker hands, is coming to mobile. Originally launched on PC back in February, Balatro was developed by LocalThunk and became one of the top played games on Steam Deck soon after launch.

That alone would warrant a port to mobile, but Balatro is one of those games that’s perfect to play on just about any platform. After selling two million units in just six months, Balatro and its extremely addictive gameplay loop is coming to mobile to ruin your productivity.

Publisher Playstack and LocalThunk have just announced that Balatro will be available through Apple Arcade, the App Store and Google Play on September 26. It’s also important to note that pre-registrations have already started, so if you want to know exactly when the game is available to download, you can sign up right now on Android and iOS.

But what exactly Balatro and why is it so addictive? Balatro mixes roguelike and poker-inspired deckbuilding mechanics. Players are encouraged to discover powerful synergies by combining valid poker hands with unique Joker cards.



The game features an in-depth campaign mode with 8 difficulties, as well as challenge and seeded runs for even more fun. Balatro has 150 Joker cards, each with their own unique abilities, so you can imagine that the combinations you can find are almost endless. Not to mention that each Joker has 5 potential variants, adding further abilities into the mix.

On top of that, Balatro includes 15 decks with distinct modifiers to choose from each run, along with 22 Tarot cards variants that can further enhance your regular playing cards.

Keep in mind that Balatro will be available for purchase for $9.99 on Android and iOS, but Apple Arcade subscribers will get it for free.