Balatro’s solo developer, LocalThunk, worked on the game for about three years before launch, with the development timeline starting in late 2021 and the game releasing on February 20, 2024.

There’s also a separate answer for the 1.1 update : in 2025, LocalThunk said they had been working on Balatro non-stop for about two years straight before slowing down to avoid burnout.

Quick scoop

  • Base game: about 3 years.
  • Later update work: roughly 2 years of ongoing post-launch development by 2025.

TL;DR: Balatro took around three years to make.