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

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

This isn't the first time Balatro has faced scrutiny from outside organizations; 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.

The house always wins As mentioned above, one of the key reasons Balatro was 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 because Balatro's classification has also been carried over to platforms like mobile. This is despite the presence of in-app transactions in virtually everything on our humble platform. So, better a late fix than never? Perhaps, but 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?