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Japanese developer, Mark-on, gives staff Friday off to play Monster Hunter Rise

The Monster Hunter fever is real.

Monster Hunter Rise releases this Friday, and at least one place of business is happy to give its employees the day off to play the highly anticipated game.

Jack Masaki, CEO of Japanese VR/AR developer Mark-on, realised that his staff have caught the Monster Hunter bug, so he decided to help them out. After seeing a number of employees request Friday off, Masaki sent a company-wide email letting staff know that Friday is off for everyone.

Masaki tweeted out the note (via Gaijinhunter). According to their translation, the CEO felt that employees would not be able to concentrate on work on Monster Hunter Rise's release day anyway.

Monster Hunter has always been massive in Japan, particularly on handheld systems, so it's perfectly understandable that fans are hungry for Rise. Indeed, the game looks to be one of the good ones. Rise is the first entry in the storied series developed for Switch, of course, so there's a lot of anticipation for it, beyond just the usual excitement for a new Monster Hunter.

In our review, James Billcliffe called it a "solid, standalone entry to the series which pulls back on the scope of recent games on more powerful platforms, but doesn’t skimp on the fundamentals that made the Monster Hunter name."

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