Balatro temporarily removed from Switch eShops in Europe due to age rating change

Publisher Playstack and developer LocalThunk have been living the dream the last few days, as their release of Balatro has been a humungous success. The game became profitable in its first hour of sale, reached $1 million in revenue in the first 8 hours, and sold over 250k units within 72 hours. Without a doubt, Balatro is a bona fide hit, and with so many new fans out there, certain questions keep popping up.

If you live in Europe and you wanted to get in on the fun, we’ve got some bad news for you. You won’t be able to find Balatro on the Switch eShop in your region right now, and it’s all due to a ratings issue. Following an initial rating of 3+ by PEGI, the game has been yanked for and 18+ reclassification. Apparently PEGI went ahead with the reclassification without word to Playstack or LocalThunk, so they were completely shocked to see the situation pop up.

As you probably have guessed, PEGI thinks the game deserved reclassification due to its gambling themes. Playstack has released a very lengthy statement on the matter and you can read it in full below.