Japanese developer gives staff 4-day weekend to play Elden Ring

By Vikki Blake
published

We're all going on an Elden Holiday!

Elden Ring
(Image credit: From Software)

While the rest of us were bleary-eyed and/or phoning in sick yesterday, a company in Japan gave its entire team the day off to celebrate the release of From Software's eagerly-anticipated action RPG, Elden Ring.

Pocketpair, which develops monster battler Palworld, announced earlier this week that it would give everyone Friday off – with pay, no less – suggesting that staff would be "unable to focus on work" anyway given it was Elden Ring's release date.

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But there's more, too. As well as an "Elden Holiday" on Friday, staff have also been told that they don't have to come in first thing on Monday, either, so that they can play into the early hours on Monday before work guilt-free (thanks, Automaton Media). 

"When Elden Ring hits the rails, the momentum carries it forward and refuses to slow down," we said in the GamesRadar+ Elden Ring review, in which we awarded the ARPG a full five out of five stars.

"My peaks of rage at being stomped on by towering titans never stopped being fun despite that, with that very particular form of masochistic joy you get from wrestling with FromSoftware games. It might not be as groundbreaking as its inspirations, but taken on its own terms, Elden Ring might be the best of its brethren - and that's something I'm still struggling to believe has actually happened."

At the time of writing, Elden Ring has received a "Mixed" review aggregate score from users on Steam, where many players are complaining of PC optimization issues.

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Vikki Blake
Vikki Blake
Weekend Reporter, GamesRadar+

Vikki Blake is GamesRadar+'s Weekend Reporter. Vikki works tirelessly to ensure that you have something to read on the days of the week beginning with 'S', and can also be found contributing to outlets including the BBC, Eurogamer, and GameIndustry.biz. Vikki also runs a weekly games column at NME, and can be frequently found talking about Destiny 2 and Silent Hill on Twitter.