Monster Hunter Rise vacation requests prompt official holiday at Japanese tech company

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Rise and shine and play Monster Hunter all day

Monster Hunter Rise best weapons tier list:
(Image credit: Capcom)

A Japanese tech company was so overwhelmed by Monster Hunter fans requesting the day off for Monster Hunter Rise's launch that it decided to just make the day an official holiday.

As flagged by Stealth on Twitter, Masaki Hiyama, CEO of tech developer Mark-On Ltd., revealed that he'd received a high volume of vacation requests from employees explicitly looking to play Monster Hunter Rise as soon as possible. And so for that reason, Hiyama told his employees to take the day off, as "it is assumed that you will not be able to concentrate on your work."

Monster Hunter is an incredibly popular series, most notably in Japan, where it rivals the likes of Pokemon and Dragon Quest in terms of pop culture prevalence. Giving employees some time off to enjoy the series' latest release, especially after a year of a pandemic that's only just now showing signs of slowing, is an incredibly sweet gesture. 

Monster Hunter Rise, a Switch console exclusive coming to PC in early 2022, launches Friday, March 26, meaning Hiyama's lucky employees get a three-day weekend to hunt monsters to their heart's content. Reviews so far are largely positive and describe a title that adopts many of the new mechanics introduced in Monster Hunter World while toning down the scale considerably. 

Our Monster Hunter Rise review calls the title "a smaller, more personal adventure," "smartly providing sublime new tools to the established arsenal like the Wirebug, and acting as a welcoming point of entry for newcomers with overly welcoming tutorial segments."

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Jordan Gerblick
Jordan Gerblick

After scoring a degree in English from ASU, I worked as a copy editor while freelancing for places like SFX Magazine, Screen Rant, Game Revolution, and MMORPG on the side. Now, as GamesRadar's west coast Staff Writer, I'm responsible for managing the site's western regional executive branch, AKA my apartment, and writing about whatever horror game I'm too afraid to finish.

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