Palworld studio Pocketpair gives staff five days off for GTA6 launch

Five days in Vice City

Pocketpair, the studio behind the survival game Palworld, will give its staff five days off around the release of Grand Theft Auto 6. The company announced the leave on the official Palworld account on X, formerly Twitter, on 12 November 2026.

The post said all Pocketpair employees had been granted special leave for what it called an urgent five-day business trip in Vice City, the fictional setting of the game. A note shared with the post set the holiday from Thursday, 19 November to Monday, 23 November 2026.

According to the note, only employees who intend to play Grand Theft Auto 6 are eligible. The same note said update work for Palworld and Craftopia is on schedule and will be carried out as normal during the break.

A release the studio calls historic

The company framed the decision around the size of the launch. The note said millions of players would be at school or work on 19 November, waiting for what it described as a new era of gaming, and that Pocketpair believes such a historic occasion deserves full attention.

The note closed with a wish that employees enjoy their time away from the office and return safely from their travels. The five days also leave time to travel to Miami for the game's release festival, the report said.

The wider cost of launch day

The leave follows estimates about how many people will skip work for the release. José García Montalvo, an economics professor at Pompeu Fabra University in Barcelona, told the International Business Times last month that about 1.5 million absences, at an average annual income of $70,000, could cost the U.S. economy roughly $1 billion in lost productivity on the day.

The report also cited a precedent from the previous game: when Grand Theft Auto 5 released in 2013, about 6% of working adults aged 18 to 35 in major U.S. metropolitan areas took the day off.

Pocketpair did not say how it would check who intends to play the game, and the report noted the condition may not be enforced.