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 being that Balatro, the engaging roguelike deckbuilder, was initially classified as PEGI 18 by rating boards. This rating 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 Twitter to announce the news, this was in part due to an appeal by the publisher of Balatro to the board.

It's not the first time Balatro has fallen foul of 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, and the only use of cash is as an abstract way to purchase more cards within each run.

As mentioned above, one of the key reasons Balatro was classified as such was due to the depiction of gambling-adjacent imagery. Essentially, the reason it was considered as severe as vehicular homicide in GTA is that someone might figure out what a straight flush or a flush is.

It's frustrating as well because Balatro's classification has also been carried over to platforms like mobile. This is despite, of course, the presence of in-app transactions in virtually everything on our humble platform. So, better a late fix than never? Maybe, but it shouldn't have happened in the first place.

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