Balatro took the world by storm when it was released in early 2024, selling more than 3.5 million copies and winning three of the five awards that it was nominated for at the 2024 Game Awards. Unsurprisingly, thanks both to its creativity and its near-infinite replayability, the game remains incredibly popular to this day, although as they begin to master its mechanics, some players may find themselves looking for new ways to freshen up the experience a little.

Although this can be achieved easily enough with mods, some players may prefer to enable the game's built-in developer debug menu, which can be accessed with a little bit of typing and a few button clicks. Balatro cheats allow players to put together their dream Joker combinations without having to search for the perfect seeds and have the added bonus of keeping achievements unlocked, making them ideal for those who don't want to use mods.

Quick Links

• How to Enable Cheats in Balatro

• How to Use the Debug Menu in Balatro

How to Enable Cheats in Balatro

To enable the Balatro debug menu and use the game's built-in cheats, players will need a free piece of open-source software called 7-Zip. Assuming they have this already, they should navigate to the directory in which Balatro is installed, which, for most players, will be C:Program Files (x86)SteamsteamappscommonBalatro. If it's not there, players should find Balatro in their Steam library, right-click, and then choose "Manage" followed by "Browse Local Files".

Once they're in the right folder, players will need to right-click on Balatro.exe and choose to open the archive with 7-Zip. Depending on their operating system and the options they chose when installing 7-Zip, this may be buried under the "Show More Options" menu. After opening the archive, players should find a file called conf.lua and open it using a basic text editor like Notepad.

The final step is to change _RELEASE_MODE = true to _RELEASE_MODE = false and then save the file. If for whatever reason they're unable to save, players should extract the conf.lua file to their desktop, make the above change, and then replace the original file with the copy they just made. If done correctly, they'll now be able to open the debug menu by pressing and holding the tab button in-game.

How to Use the Debug Menu in Balatro

The Balatro cheats menu is incredibly straightforward, with most of its functions being fairly self-explanatory. Players can unlock every item in their collection by hovering over them and pressing 1 while the debug menu is open, and can add any of the many Balatro jokers they like to their current game by hovering over them and pressing 3. Although they'll be limited to five jokers to begin with, players can turn a joker into a negative by hovering over the copy in their hand and pressing Q four times, effectively allowing them to have as many jokers as they like during a run.

All Balatro Cheats (Hold Tab to Open Menu)