Balatro's devs finally settle pronunciation of the game's name
Developers and creatives close to LocalThunk finally settled a question of how to say 'Balatro', but it's kind of a 'we're all correct' situation.
Balatro. BAH-luh-tro. Ba-LAH-tro. Millions of us have said it once or twice over the last year, but we’ve also often caught each other off-guard with our own myriad pronunciations of the game’s name. Up to this point, developer LocalThunk has never made a public appearance where they actually addressed how the game’s name is said. Fortunately, someone close to the dev was kind enough to set the record straight, but it’s not going to be quite as definitive as fans may want.
Stephen Totilo recently posted a conversation with Balatro publisher PlayStack’s Head of Video Marketing, Naman Budhwar, on his Game File newsletter.
In their conversation, Budhwar breaks down his personal experiences with Localthunk and the game’s name.
“How do you pronounce… Ba-LAH-tro?” Totilo asked.
“BAH-la-tro is how LocalThunk says it,” Budhwar replied. “But it’s kind of a ‘gif / jif’ situation, where he doesn’t really mind how people say it.
“So people can say ‘ba-LAH-tro’, they can say ‘BAH-la-tro’, but we decided to go with his pronunciation.”
“BAY-la-tro?” Totilo joked. “Can I say that?”
“You can say BAY-la-tro, yeah”, Budhwar replied, perhaps not seriously.
It’s a funny thing, but Balatro has been on the end of many tongues since its launch in 2024. It has collected numerous awards, and was even the Shacknews Game of the Year, Mobile Game of the Year, and Indie Game of the Year for 2024 here at Shacknews. With so much praise and over 5 million sold units behind it, it makes sense that fans would want to know how the game’s name is actually supposed to be said.
The answer is we’re all correct, within reason of course. However you say Balatro is probably okay as long as it gets the concept across. Be sure to follow our other Balatro coverage where you can focus on playing the game more than saying its name.
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