OK, so just up there, the really weird Balatro Friends of Jimbo (Pack 3) reveal trailer? Yeah, there’s a weirder version of that. Well, there’s outtakes from that, the video where Balatro publisher Playstack apparently paid relatively famous voice actor Ben Starr to be a silly clown. Which is to say that the voice actor of Clive from Final Fantasy 16 and Prometheus from Hades 2 is uh, you know, a goofy clown.
But apparently Ben Starr has some behind the scenes outtakes from the filming of that trailer. I say this because he has posted them to Twitter and they are extremely unhinged and borderline NSFW on account of what is done to those bananas.
Behind the scenes insanity of #Balatro. pic.twitter.com/uLflxriXdMDecember 21, 2024
This trailer is just the latest of the trailers for Balatro’s smorgasbord of crossovers with other games, its “Friends of Jimbo” patches that have introduced yet more little pixel representations of pixel people to go on cards to score points with. This one’s a (free) pack of crossovers with Divinity Original Sin 2, Shovel Knight, Potion Craft, Enter the Gungeon, Cult of the Lamb, Don’t Starve, 1000xRESIST, and Warframe.
The first Friends of Jimbo pack released in August, bringing along all manner of little weird guys like an Among Us astronaut and Geralt, from The Witcher. The second Friends of Jimbo came in October, adding crossovers like Stardew Valley, Cyberpunk 2077, and Slay the Spire.
None of those, however, had a live-action trailer like the one for this last Friends of Jimbo pack. “I have a of of fucking friends,” says Jimbo, as portrayed by Ben Starr.
Poker-themed deckbuilder Balatro is the game that caused PC Gamer to proclaim, this year, that the future of gaming belongs to weird little games. Which is something the rest of the year bore out, as Balatro continued to sell—breaching 3.5 million copies sold and even going to mobile platforms—proving that its infectious sense of humor and strange little soundtrack belong in gaming history books. You should probably go play it now. I know I’m going to.
