When Balatro launched in early 2024, I had absolutely no interest in playing it. My friends did nothing but sing its praises, the internet told me it was the must-play game of the year, and every day when walking back from the shops I'd see my neighbor playing it - I'm not weird, he just always has his curtains open. After a while, the Balatro fever died down, and I figured it would become yet another critically acclaimed indie I just don't have the time for.

Fast-forward a few months and Balatro earns indie game of the year and gets a GOTY nomination at the 2024 Game Awards, officially cementing it as one of the best indie games of 2024. Naturally, my curiosity got the better of me, so I finally gave it a go. Of course, anyone who has played Balatro will know that I instantly fell in love because it really is that good. However, I don't want to talk just about how good Balatro is, but rather about how its gameplay loop is illustrative of a gaming trend that has dominated 2024.

Balatro Makes Me Think Players Want Simpler Games

Its Gameplay Loop Is Simple Yet Engrossing

Balatro is a simple game at its core. It sees players make poker hands in order to score points, with better hands earning higher amounts of coins and multipliers. This is all framed by a roguelike model, which requires players to beat or skip two easier "blinds" before taking on the "boss blind". With eight rounds to beat before it reaches an endless mode, fans just have to get through 24 missions which is no easy feat. Of course, it's made all the better thanks to an unbelievably good score made even better during the Game Awards.

Balatro's complexity comes from its Jokers, which is understandably mine and everyone else's favorite part of the game. These are dished out randomly in the shop, with each one typically increasing the amount of chips or multiplier players earn in one turn depending on specific factors. For example, players could purchase a Joker that adds four to the multiplier for every Spade card in their hand.

Naturally, this can lead to a lot of strategizing, with the idea being to build your deck of cards around these Jokers. The endless combinations are what make Balatro an indie hit, as well as the captivating animations that I simply cannot get enough of. However, while Balatro can get complex when players look under the hood, what makes it such a tantalizing experience, at least in my eyes, is the simplicity that underscores everything. It is all made as easy as possible, from explaining each of the different hand types to even the minimal number of blinds per ante.

Importantly, none of this is to imply that Balatro is in some way a worse game as a result. Rather, I believe that Balatro's biggest strength lies in this simple gameplay loop. It feels like a back-to-basics game, one that hooks the player with a simple loop, allows players to strategize while managing enough of the complex information to give players a power fantasy like no other, and is quick and easy to get into to ensure people consistently come back. Interestingly, I have found that Balatro's game design philosophy is not an exception in 2024, but rather the rule.

2024 Has Been Dominated By Back-To-Basics Games

Space Marine 2 & Black Ops 6 Feel Like Old School Experiences

"Simple" or "back-to-basics" games have dominated a lot of 2024, including both indies and AAA experiences. That's not to say that I believe games haven't been technically proficient or, again, that they've been in some way worse off for adopting gameplay styles and design philosophies of a bygone era. Rather, I feel a large portion of incredibly successful and much-discussed games in 2024 offered gameplay akin to that of the early 2010s, focusing on offering a wide array of content and game modes while sticking to easy-to-understand gameplay mechanics that appeal to as wide an audience as possible.

Of course, the most notable example of this is Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2, a game that is a return to the third-person cover shooter popularized in the late 2000s. It offers a content-rich experience - helped immensely by Space Marine 2's generous updates - that isn't marred by microtransactions that are sapping all the fun away. It's also simple in its execution, giving players access to a limited yet fun arsenal of weapons, keeping its campaign to a tight eight hours, offering a lightweight yet nevertheless enjoyable multiplayer mode, and tying it all into an expanding PvE mode.

Similarly, to a lesser extent, Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 offered a nostalgic experience, one that is still stuffed with a gargantuan amount of microtransactions, but that nevertheless offered an experience akin to what fans were used to during the original Modern Warfare era. Its back-to-basics campaign was, again, a tightly crafted experience that complemented a multiplayer mode stacked with iconic and new maps and interesting gameplay mechanics. I also found Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth fit into this trend - among many others, of course - thanks to its packed open world that hearkened back to those of the 360 era.

Helldivers 2, yet another of 2024's critical darlings and a personal favorite, could also arguably be put in the same camp as Black Ops 6. It is a live service experience with a simple yet nevertheless perfectly crafted gameplay loop that is effortlessly engrossing thanks to its easy-to-learn yet hard-to-master mechanics.

What I found so intriguing is this pattern of games either returning to a simpler time in of game design philosophies or offering simpler experiences that are nevertheless captivating. I believe it is in response to an industry that is ever-chasing innovation, one constantly moving forward, desperately following whatever the latest mechanical or technical innovation is. More importantly, however, it is also a symptom of an industry that can only innovate so much, one in which experiences are cyclical and where people who grow up on a certain experience end up crafting them for the next generation of players.

Innovation Is Still Important In Gaming

We Need More Games Like BOTW & Elden Ring

I still firmly believe that innovation is important to gaming and that experiences like Breath of the Wild or Elden Ring are worthwhile. I also suspect that, in the next few years, developers will find more ways to breathe new life into games. However, I'm also grateful for 2024's return to form, not just because the games it so proudly pays homage to are those that I grew up on, but because it is illustrative of an industry that is as capable of growth and innovation as it is understanding what made games so great in the past.

The many games in 2024 that demonstrate this willingness to reflect and understand the importance of legacies, either those directly of a specific developer or within the genre it is developing for, also further showcases that this phenomenon isn't isolated, but rather industry-wide. In previous years, it had been up to individual games like Sea of Stars, or double-A developers like Piranha Bytes and Spiders, to bring old experiences to modern audiences. I'm grateful that the whole industry is now recognizing the value in not simply reviving old IP or ideas, but rather fundamentally understanding why it's worth doing so.

I had been thinking about this throughout 2024, but it wasn't until I played Balatro that I put it all together. It was Balatro's universal success that served as the final piece of the puzzle, as it reminded me of another indie game that brought the experiences of an older series to modern audiences and, in doing so, birthed a whole new genre. Of course, I'm referring to Stardew Valley, and while I don't believe we'll get too many Balatro-likes, I do strongly believe that it and 2024's other games will inspire future games to better balance innovation and legacy.

Source: thegameawards/YouTube