With Fallout 5 being so far on the horizon that it is hard to remain hopeful about its release at all, fans are looking for different ways to experience the post-apocalyptic RPG, even if that means looking in the last place you would expect.

Although 2018’s Fallout 76 still welcomes regular updates, it has been almost a decade since the last mainline Fallout entry, Fallout 4, was released.

Despite Bethesda reportedly working on Fallout 5, we have received little to no updates and fans are starting to lose hope that we will see it within the next five years.

However, the Fallout franchise is still being kept alive both with its hit Amazon Prime Video show and its latest cameo in an award-winning card game.

Yes, you guessed it. It’s Balatro.

Released just over a year ago, Balatro has taken the world by storm, even going on to win multiple awards at the 2024 Game Awards.

Now the poker-inspired roguelike deck builder has announced upcoming crossovers with Assassin’s Creed, Civilization, Slay the Princess, and of course, Fallout.

As part of its “Friends of Jimbo” update, Balatro will be welcoming several new face card customisations to the game.

As well as the aforementioned games, the collaboration will also feature art from Dead by Daylight and Bugsnax, so this is set to be a pretty hefty update.

That’s not all as Balatro has officially joined the Xbox Game Pass library so subscribers will now be able to dive into the much-loved card game at no extra cost.

Although this is not a mainline Fallout release, it is still exciting to see the post-apocalyptic RPG series come alive in other games.

Hopefully this will inspire Bethesda to get its butt into gear.