It's a good thing we have a lot of videogames coming down the pipe to keep us busy for the next few months (at least), because the big Balatro 1.1 update we've been waiting for since last year, that was supposed to come out this year, is going to take until next year to arrive. Balatro creator LocalThunk announced the delay today, and offered a relatable excuse: "I'm slow."
After apologizing for the delay, LocalThunk said he probably shouldn't have announced a release target for the 1.1 update in the first place: He's a "hobbyist developer at heart," who unfortunately became "all too familiar with the crunch and stress that inherently come with professional game development" following the launch of Balatro in 2023. By the time the mobile edition of Balatro launched in late 2024, he was "well and truly burned out."
"I took a break from everything to do with the game for a few months until the start of 2025 when I very slowly eased myself back into the work," LocalThunk wrote. "However, I chose to only work on the game like I did when the project began, as a hobbyist (a few hours per day, and not always on the 1.1 update), and it turns out that it’s a lot slower than working in crunch mode 12 hours per day like I was around launch."
None of which means he's lost interest in working on Balatro. Quite the opposite, in fact: He still enjoys drawing "silly jokers" and carries a notebook filled with new ideas for the game. But the prospect of crunching to get the 1.1 update out in time to meet the self-imposed 2025 deadline left him feeling "terrible," so he's decided to ease off.
"I am working slowly, but I like it that way," LocalThunk wrote. "I love getting sucked into rabbit holes and I don’t like trying to force things creatively. I have never, before Balatro, set a deadline for any of my creative projects and I now realize how important that is for my process.
"I am in a very lucky position in that I can choose to work this job however I wish, and I think the best version of 'work' for me is the version that makes me want to come back to my keyboard every day, healthy, and hopefully just as excited about game development 5 years from now as I am today. I don’t want 1.1 to be the last update this game gets."
I wanted to give an update on the Balatro 1.1 release date: localthunk.com/blog/im-slow TL;DR is that it will not be coming out in 2025, it is still coming out for sure, and I'm sorry. The new timeline is "it's done when it's done" Please read the blog post for more details
— @localthunk.com (@localthunk.com.bsky.social) 2025-09-12T16:02:02.905Z
The good news for LocalThunk is that this sort of thing isn't new for hit indie games: Vampire Survivors' free-roaming online mode took years to arrive, and Eric Barone's been pulling this stunt with Haunted Chocolatier for the better part of a decade now. And, as reflected in the responses to the announcement on Bluesky, fans are a very forgiving bunch—not just because they love the games but because there's genuine concern for the well-being of the people who make them. It's tougher to see when you're looking at a team of hundreds of anonymous people working on a major big-budget game, but when one person (or a few people, as the case may be) whose passion project has exploded into a huge hit tells you they need a break, it's easy to be sympathetic.
So the timeline for the Balatro 1.1 update is now the classic "when it's done," but LocalThunk reassured everyone that it will be finished. "I posted a few months ago that I finally got 100% of the achievements in Balatro, and for a bit of reassurance, the Balatro player in me will absolutely not allow me to walk away from developing this game. I’m already super excited to try and 100% the game all over again from a second profile when 1.1 is ready. Rest assured, it will happen."
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