Rogueliker

Balatro dealt a full house of nominations for this year’s edition of The Game Awards

19th November 2024

The Game Awards is the now annual celebration of video games organised by Geoff Keighley and his team, and this year’s nominees have just been revealed.

For what it’s worth, my personal GOTY is Balatro, at least if “time played” is the key metric you consider (across the demo, Steam, and iOS I think I must have 300+ hours in the bank).

It seems that I’m not the only one who has fallen in love with LocalThunk’s poker-themed roguelike, as the title just picked up a very respectable five nominations at this year’s The Game Awards.

The standout is the overall Game of the Year category, where Balatro is going up against the real big hitters: Astro Bot, Black Myth: Wukong, Elden Ring Shadow of the Erdtree, Final Fantasy VII Rebirth, and Metaphor: Refantazio. You can vote for ~~your favourite~~ Balatro here.

(I personally wouldn’t have included the Elden Ring DLC expansion instead of a whole new game, but then I’m not a corporate sponsor so who cares what I think…)

Alongside its nominations for GOTY, Balatro was also nominated for best mobile game, best game direction, best indie game (alongside UFO 50), and best indie game debut. Not bad for a poker-themed roguelike from an unheralded game developer… Congratulations to LocalThunk and everyone at Playstack!

If you want to read more about Balatro, I’ve got a bunch of articles archived right here!

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