A Japanese company saw so many employees booking the day of Monster Hunter Rise’s launch off of work that it’s giving all its employees the day off instead.As spotted by Stealth on Twitter, Masaki Hiyama of tech developer Mark-On Ltd realised that a lot of the company’s employees were requesting to take the day off on March 26th, when Monster Hunter Rise launches worldwide on Nintendo Switch. In response, the company leadership decided to make the day an official holiday, assuming that their employees wouldn’t be able to concentrate on their work.

This is amazing…… a Japanese Company is giving employees the day off for a new holiday “Monster Hunter Rise Launch Day” because so many employees were planning on taking the day off anyway.

Source: https://t.co/yY77qRCUtw

— Stealth (@Stealth40k) March 23, 2021

The Huffington Post Japan spoke to Hiyama-san over the phone, where they said that several employees had already requested vacation on the 26th so they could play the new Monster Hunter game, which led them to make the day an official holiday. Naturally, Mark-On’s employees have been grateful for the decision, and many Monster Hunter fans on Twitter have been wishing their own companies would implement a similar policy.

The Monster Hunter series is incredibly successful in Japan, with every new release seeing enormous attention. It’s not a dissimilar situation to that of Dragon Quest, which traditionally sees so much interest on launch days that Square began releasing new entries on Saturdays to stop children skipping school – a fact which became its own urban myth.

Here’s our final preview of Monster Hunter Rise ahead of the game’s launch later this week. If you just can’t wait, here are 24 things you need to know about the game that should help prepare you before you dig in and start hunting on Friday.

Jordan Oloman is a freelance writer for IGN. Follow him on Twitter.