Palworld Dev Pocketpair Gives Employees Monster Hunter Wilds Launch Day Off After Receiving ‘Mysterious’ Notes From Staff Who Said They’d Probably Be Too Unwell to Work

The developer of Palworld has given its staff the day off to play Monster Hunter Wilds.

As reported by Automaton, yesterday Japanese studio Pocketpair said on social media that it had received a number of “mysterious” notices from employees who claimed they will “probably be feeling unwell tomorrow” and unable to work.

And so, today, February 28, Monster Hunter Wilds’ official release date, is a sort of holiday for Pocketpair staff. It’s a clear nice gesture, but still Pocketpair felt the need to clarify that updates on its games would not be affected.

Monster Hunter Wilds has got off to an incredible start, with 1 million concurrent players on Steam alone. That’s enough to break into Steam’s top 10 most-played games of all-time list, ahead of best-sellers Baldur’s Gate 3, Hogwarts Legacy, and Elden Ring.

However, Monster Hunter Wilds has a ‘mixed’ user review rating on Steam, which has led to Capcom publishing official guidance for PC performance issues. Meanwhile, Capcom has announced early details for Monster Hunter Wilds Title Update 1, which is set to add an endgame social hub for players.

The impact of Monster Hunter Wilds’ launch is truly global, but it seems particularly pronounced in its home market of Japan. Automaton reported on one Japanese indie developer who took to social media to jokingly say it hadn’t sold a single game on Steam since Monster Hunter Wilds game out.

And Pocketpair has form when it comes to giving its staff days off to play games — it did the same thing back in 2022 when FromSoftware’s Elden Ring came out.

To help get your Monster Hunter Wilds adventure started, take a look at what Monster Hunter Wilds doesn’t tell you, and a guide to all 14 weapon types in the game. We’ve also got a detailed Monster Hunter Wilds walkthrough in progress, a Monster Hunter Wilds multiplayer guide to explain how to play with friends, and if you’ve played one of the open betas, here’s how to transfer your Monster Hunter Wilds Beta character over.

IGN’s Monster Hunter Wilds review returned an 8/10. We said: “Monster Hunter Wilds continues to smooth off the rougher corners of the series in smart ways, making for some extremely fun fights but also lacking any real challenge.”

Wesley is the UK News Editor for IGN. Find him on Twitter at @wyp100. You can reach Wesley at wesley_yinpoole@ign.com or confidentially at wyp100@proton.me.