Balatro Reclassified to PEGI 12 After Publisher's Appeal

Frequent readers (and why wouldn't you be?) may recall one of the more oddball stories last year: Balatro, the roguelike deckbuilder, was initially classified as PEGI 18 by rating boards. This placed it on the same level of content as something like Grand Theft Auto, which naturally baffled many people, including the developer.

However, it seems that PEGI has recognized their error and reclassified Balatro, designating it as the more appropriate (at least in my opinion) PEGI 12. According to developer Localthunk, who took to X (formerly Twitter) to announce the news, this reclassification was in part due to an appeal by the publisher of Balatro to the board.

It's not the first time Balatro has faced issues with outside organizations, as it was also briefly pulled from the Nintendo eShop due to its perceived gambling content. This is despite the fact that players can't actually win real money or make bets; the only use of cash is as an abstract way to purchase more cards within each run.

The house always wins As mentioned above, one of the key reasons Balatro was initially classified as such was due to the depiction of gambling-adjacent imagery. Essentially, the concern was that someone might figure out what a straight flush or a flush is.

It's frustrating, especially since Balatro's classification has also affected its presence on platforms like mobile. This is despite the widespread presence of in-app transactions on virtually everything on our humble platform. So, while a late fix is better than never, it shouldn't have happened in the first place.

If this reclassification is finally swaying you to try out Balatro (for some reason), why not take a look at our tier list of Jokers to find out which of these game-changing cards are worthwhile and which aren't?