Poker-based roguelike deckbuilder Balatro is another big hit from out of nowhere for 2024

Balatro emerged a month ago on Steam and is the latest game on Valve's service to swiftly build up an immense amount of traction from out of nowhere, really grabbing the attention of PC gamers.

The big announcement for Balatro (which is also out on consoles: PlayStation, Switch and Xbox) is that the game has just sold a million copies.

It's a compact and streamlined game, a deckbuilder based on poker - although the mention of the traditional card game might well put you off. However, all the critics and reviews say don't worry about the poker influence, you don't need to know, or like, poker to enjoy Balatro.

By all accounts, it's one of those games which represents a seriously clever twist on its genre, and Balatro is very, very addictive going by the feedback on Steam (and from PC Gamer, for that matter, which highlighted the game hitting a million sales).

It's apparently easy to learn, yet has a lot of depth, and we're tempted to download it ourselves (except not yet - we have too many games on our wait-list as it is).

Described as Slay the Spire for gambling addicts in one review - though it's a whole lot more than this - this is another release which folks are already putting in the running for Game of the Year 2024.

We've already seen the likes of Palworld become a storming success - and more recently Helldivers 2 - so what else is set to come from left field and demand the attention of PC gamers this year? Manor Lords is another one to watch that should be out later this year...