"Urgent Business Trip to Vice City": Palworld Studio Pocketpair Grants Staff a Five-Day Paid Holiday for GTA 6
With just seven days remaining before the global launch of Grand Theft Auto VI on Thursday, November 19, 2026, Japanese studio Pocketpair has unveiled the ultimate cure for the looming wave of launch-day sick calls. In an official announcement posted on X this Thursday, November 12, the developer behind Palworld confirmed it is granting all employees a special five-day paid holiday so they can dive into Leonida from minute one.
An "Urgent Five-Day Business Trip to Vice City" From November 19 to 23
Rather than pretending its staff will be able to focus on spreadsheets and engine builds next Thursday, Pocketpair leaned all the way into the cultural phenomenon with an official company memo stamped with Rockstar's iconic six-star wanted level in the top corner. Titled "Special Company Holiday Announcement", the notice formally excuses staff from all regular work duties for five consecutive days, running from Thursday, November 19 through Monday, November 23, 2026.
In the internal letter addressed to all employees, the Tokyo-based studio explained the rationale behind the five-day break with disarming honesty:
"On November 19, millions of gamers around the world will find themselves sitting at school or work, gazing longingly out the window, knowing that a new era of gaming is about to begin. At Pocketpair, we believe that such a historic occasion deserves our full attention. Therefore, after careful consideration, we have decided that all employees who intend to play Grand Theft Auto VI will be granted a special five-day holiday. During this period, employees will be excused from their regular duties and are instead encouraged to undertake a business trip to Vice City."
Pocketpair founder and CEO Takuro Mizobe immediately chimed in on social media to confirm he will be joining the exodus himself: "Of course, I'll be taking a break for a while to play GTA 6 too!"
No Delays for Palworld or Craftopia Updates as a Studio Tradition Expands
To preempt any concern from its player base, the studio included an explicit note right in the middle of the holiday directive: ongoing update work for both Palworld and Craftopia is proceeding smoothly and remains on track to be delivered as scheduled. Neither Palworld's upcoming winter content drop nor its roadmap toward version 1.0 will suffer any setback from the company-wide trip to Leonida.
While a full five-day stretch sets a new internal record, Pocketpair has made a habit of declaring special game-launch holidays whenever an industry juggernaut lands. The studio first introduced a single day off in February 2022 for FromSoftware's Elden Ring, and repeated the perk on February 28, 2025 for the launch of Monster Hunter Wilds after management joked that dozens of developers had submitted "mysterious reports" predicting they would suddenly feel unwell that morning.
From Logitech to Best Buy: Preparing for "The World's Biggest Out-of-Office Day"
Mizobe's announcement caps a remarkable week of corporate policies bending around November 19. Just forty-eight hours ago, peripheral giant Logitech instituted a company-wide paid "Logi Game Day" for all 7,000 of its employees, while British developer Bulkhead opted to shut down its offices for the entire month of December so the WARDOGS team can play GTA 6.
Major North American retailers are also openly building their fourth-quarter strategies around the workplace exodus. In the United States, electronics retailer Best Buy has framed November 19 in its holiday promotional campaigns as "the world's biggest out-of-office day". After launching its Best Buy Gamers hub on October 20 with daily sweepstakes running through November 30 and a $5 promotional certificate for the first 200,000 My Best Buy members who signed up, the retailer is counting on Rockstar's blockbuster to drive a massive surge in PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and display sales ahead of its third-quarter earnings report on November 24.
My Take
Scaling up from a single day off for Elden Ring and Monster Hunter Wilds to a full five-day paid break for GTA 6 shows that Takuro Mizobe understands exactly how game developers tick. Forcing an open-world design team to sit in front of a compiler on Thursday, November 19 while the entire industry is dissecting Rockstar's systems in Leonida would only produce distracted commits and miserable morale. By framing a five-day long weekend as an official "business trip to Vice City," Pocketpair scores priceless global goodwill for zero marketing spend,and guarantees its designers come back on Tuesday, November 24 recharged and brimming with fresh open-world ideas for Palworld.
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SEO consultant for over 20 years and digital entrepreneur, Charles "Grimtag" is the founder of Pro-Gamer.gg, Retrocharting.com, and Gamescharting.com. A competitive gamer, streamer, and retro game collector, he has worked in the video game industry for over 15 years, notably as a consultant for leading game price comparison platforms. Passionate about real-time performance data and gaming technology, he analyzes competitive esports, gaming hardware benchmarks, and creator workflows on Pro-Gamer.gg with an authentic player perspective.
