Palworld developer Pocketpair has announced that it’s giving most of its staff the day off on Friday, and while a concrete reason isn’t stated, it’s almost certainly because that’s the day on which Monster Hunter Wilds comes out.
As spotted by Automaton Media, a notice on the Japanese Pocketpair X account states that the studio’s bosses have been receiving “mysterious” messages from staff, who claim they’ll be “unwell tomorrow”.
Pocketpair then says that because it’s expecting a large volume of employees to call in mysteriously sick on Friday, it’s decided to give the majority of its staff the day off. However, the studio also says that updates for Palworld and Craftopia will be unaffected by this holiday.
As Automaton points out, Pocketpair actually did the same thing back in 2022 for the Elden Ring release date, so it’s clear the studio understands just how badly its staff is going to want to play these massive, time-consuming epics.
It looks like Pocketpair isn’t the only one that wants to play Monster Hunter Wilds, either. The game’s first open beta, which took place in November, broke Steam records for the franchise, and that’s including fully-released games.
If you’re not familiar with Monster Hunter Wilds, it’s the latest game in the long-running Monster Hunter series of, er, monster-hunting action RPGs.
Taking place in the dusty Forbidden Lands, the game features a greater emphasis on storytelling, as well as the classic epic struggles with giant monsters you’ve come to know and love from the series.
You’ll be able to check out Monster Hunter Wilds for yourself when it launches on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S on February 28th (i.e. tomorrow).
If you want to prepare yourself for the game, you can take a look at its global release timings here, and make sure to read our own Tyler’s review to find out what he thought of Wilds.
