Japanese Company Gives Employees the Day Off for Monster Hunter Rise Release

A Japanese company gave its employees the day off so they could play Monster Hunter: Rise on release day. Yahoo reports that Masaki Hiyama, the CEO of the VR content developer Mark-on Co. Ltd., announced that all non-executive employees would have the day off on March 26th due to the release of Monster Hunter Rise. Hiyama told Yahoo that several employees had requested the day off due to the game’s release, to the point that Hiyama decided to shut down his company for the day. Hiyama posted the vacation notice he sent to his employees on Twitter, which has received over 32,000 retweets and nearly 90,000 likes.

Monster Hunter Rise is the latest installment of the Monster Hunter franchise, a game series in which players hunt monsters and harvest their parts to create stronger weapons and armor. Although the games usually have a basic plot, the bulk of the game comes from learning how to successfully hunt monsters and craft special armor that allows players to battle even stronger monsters. While Monster Hunter has a sizable international following, it is particularly popular in Japan, and the newest game’s aesthetics are inspired by various ninja motifs. Monster Hunter Rise will be the first game to be released for the Nintendo Switch and is expected to be one of the console’s biggest releases of the year.

According to Yahoo, Hiyama has already received several thank you from employees, along with numerous words of support from others on Twitter. We’ll see if other companies follow his lead, or if video game holidays become more widespread in the future.

Monster Hunter Rise will be released on Nintendo Switch on March 26th.