After 3,500,000 units sold and its Game Awards wins, Balatro does a victory lap and absorbs 8 new crossovers in its unstoppable march to turn all games into cute little cards that get you points and stuff
Dear reader, I have some sorry news to report—Balatro is taking over all of gaming. No RPG, no strategy game, no charming indie hit is safe. If you have a videogame, you are getting absorbed into Balatro, until all is rendered poker, praise be to the Almighty Blind. This is the part where you imagine me sacrificing a goat.
In all seriousness, Balatro is on a well-deserved victory lap. Aside from being the PC Gamer staff's predominant mind goblin this year, it's also a superbly-designed roguelike that feels as eponymous to the genre as Slay the Spire was back in 2017. Recently, it's sold over 3,500,000 units across platforms (a number no doubt increased by its mobile release), though it's also taken best mobile and indie game at The Game Awards 2024.
In celebration of its undeniable conquest of our conscious and subconscious lives, Balatro has released its third free cosmetic update, Friends of Jimbo: Pack 3, which adds 8 more games to its already-swelling, Lovecraftian mass of crossovers, for 16 crossovers total as of the time of writing.
As with prior packs, these updates are cosmetic-only skins you can slap on your deck to make you feel a little better when the boss blind inevitably tanks your entire run because you forgot to check what it actually was in a points-addled haze. Or does that only happen to me? Anyway, here are the following games added:
- Divinity: Original Sin 2
- Shovel Knight
- Potion Craft: Alchemist Simulator
- Enter The Gungeon
- Cult of the Lamb
- Don't Starve
- 1000xRESIST
- Warframe
I've also gone ahead and taken screenshots of each of them, because Christmas has me in a festive spirit. Don't say I never gave you nothing.
As always, the card sleeves are free and, after a quick update, will be in your game already. Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go and wash my brain of the psychic hazard that was opening the game again to take those screenshots, I can feel the hankerings arriving again.