Absurdist sports (or splorts, to be more accurate) simulator Blaseball will return for a new season on January 9, 2023. That day will also see the launch of the game’s long-awaited mobile app, making it available outside of internet browsers for the first time.
Blaseball first launched in 2020 as a free browser game. It’s an idle game that simulates full seasons of a fictional sports league filled with often comedic teams like the Canada Moist Talkers and the Kansas City Breath Mints. Players interact with the game by placing bets on matchups and voting in elections that determine rule changes. That might sound fairly normal, but it’s all draped in a layer of absurdist horror. In its offseason, the game has been conducting a draft via a black hole that’s spitting players onto teams.
A trailer for the new season seems to imply that Blaseball will work more or less the same way when it returns in January. However, a press release for the currently unnamed update is cryptic in typical Blaseball fashion. “No one can say for certain what the new Era will entail,” it reads.
What we do know, however, is that the game will get a dedicated mobile app on January 9. Fans will be able to use it to bet on games, vote in elections, and communicate with one another. The latter is particularly notable, as fans previously gathered in the game’s Discord to collaborate. The app will be free to download on both iOS and Android devices.
The Blaseball website itself is getting a revamp too, though details on what that entails remain mysterious. A press release calls out new social features, but that’s all we know for now. We’ll have to find out when Blaseball makes its grand return on January 9.