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Japanese development studio gives staff paid time off to play Elden Ring

Elden Win.

The CEO of development studio Pocketpair gave the entire team the day off yesterday so that they could play Elden Ring.

According to a tweet from the company's official Twitter account, CEO Takruo Mizobe offered the paid "Elden Holiday" leave in recognition that staff will be "unable to focus on work" on the day From Software's latest saga is released.

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Though not officially classed as a day off, staff also don't have to come into the office on Monday, either, so they can play into the late hours of Monday morning, too (thanks, Automaton Media).

Though Aoife admits "George R.R Martin's heavy inclusion in the marketing for the game remains rather baffling", in her Essential Eurogamer Elden Ring review, she wrote: " Elden Ring remains a glorious game, one that established fans are going to savour for some time to come, and one that may just welcome new fans into the FromSoft fold.

"Sumptuous visual design, dark and detailed lore and a vast-but-intricate open world are reason enough to venture out into the Lands Between. Add to that FromSoftware's unforgiving and unforgettable gameplay loop and this is something truly special."

Pocketpair recently dropped a new trailer for its forthcoming monster battler, Palworld. The Pokémon-inspired game is a "multiplayer, open-world survival crafting game" according to the Steam page.