Palworld Studio Pocketpair Gives Employees 5 Days Off to Play GTA 6
Pocketpair's staff will be off from November 19 to 23 to play GTA 6, as time-off requests spike and studios move their releases away from launch.
Rockstar
Pocketpair, the developer of Palworld and Craftopia, gives its employees five days off specifically to play GTA 6.
"All Pocketpair employees have been granted special leave to attend to an urgent five-day business trip in Vice City when GTA 6 launches," the company wrote on X in a "Special Company Holiday Announcement."
"At Pocketpair, we believe that such a historic occasion deserves our full attention," the announcement reads. The days off run from November 19 to November 23. To qualify for the holiday, an employee only needs to intend to play Grand Theft Auto 6. During this period, employees will be excused from their regular duties and are instead encouraged to undertake that business trip.
The developer notes that update work for Palworld and Craftopia is proceeding smoothly and is expected to be carried out as scheduled.
Read the full announcement:
Pocketpair CEO Takuro Mizobe said he'd also pause his work to play the game: "Of course, I'll be taking a break for a while to play GTA6 too!"
Pocketpair isn't alone in such a decision. Hardware maker Logitech also gave its employees a day off, calling it a Logi Game Day, "recognizing the cognitive and professional benefits of gaming." "It's time to retire the stereotype that gaming is a waste of time," said Hanneke Faber, Logitech CEO.
Logitech
Bulkhead, the studio behind the FPS Wardogs, will take the entire month of December off – not because of GTA 6, but after a stretch of hard work. The CEO of BULKHEAD, Joe Brammer, said: "Go play GTA 6, we need to detox."
Overall, there's a spike of between 9% and 17% in time-off requests for November 19, according to HR software company BambooHR. In the UK, about 1.2 million employees across 70,000 businesses have requested time off, as HR specialists from BrightHR reported.
Players aren't the only ones changing their plans: many studios have postponed their releases because of the looming launch of GTA 6, but there's at least one game that specifically targeted the November release window: Shrek 2 Remastered, which released on November 10. It even had a trailer that drew on the Grand Theft Auto 6 preview videos, from the glowing outline title reveal to Rockstar's overall cinematic style, and recreated the series' iconic grid-based design:
Aspyr Media
Grand Theft Auto 6 will launch on Thursday, November 19, 2026, on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S. Rockstar recently shared official details about pre-loads. Digital pre-loading on PlayStation 5 begins Tuesday, November 10 at midnight local time in players' respective time zones. On Xbox Series X|S, pre-loading begins globally on Tuesday, November 10 at 12 a.m. GMT. Code-in-box versions for both consoles should be available from retailers beginning November 12. The pre-load file will require up to 212 GB, depending on the device.
To learn more about the upcoming release, check out our guide on GTA 6, where we've collected everything we know: the expected PC release date, gameplay sneak peeks, and more.
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