Palworld Devs Faked Sickness to Play Monster Hunter Wilds

Have you ever faked illness on the release day of an eagerly awaited game so that you could use a sick day from work to play it? If so, there’s a chance you share a similarity with the creators of the 2024 smash-hit creature collector RPG Palworld, who might have done the same thing.

As an outside observer, I noticed that Pocketpair Studio, the creators behind the game, decided to make February 28 a company-wide holiday and granted most employees the day off. The reason? A surge of employees claimed they were ill on this specific date – which happened to be the release of Capcom’s much-anticipated action role-playing game, Monster Hunter Rise. It’s rather coincidental, don’t you think?

According to the memo, due to an unusual number of employees reporting potential sickness for March 1st, the company has chosen to grant a one-off day off instead.

In the memo, Pocketpair noted: “Just wanted to let you know that the updates for Palworld and Craftopia are moving along nicely and should be rolled out as planned.

Given Monster Hunter’s immense popularity across Japan, it’s hardly unexpected that numerous Palworld employees felt compelled to fake sickness in order to explore the Wilds on their day off. In fact, considering how well the new game is doing globally, I wouldn’t be surprised if people from all around the world have done the same.

This morning, Monster Hunter Wilds broke through to have over 1 million simultaneous players on Steam, even outshining Cyberpunk 2077 in terms of historical popularity on the platform. With many more expected to join the fun on Xbox Series X|S and PS5. The game’s impressive debut is backed by numerous favorable reviews from both press and critics, earning a Metacritic score of 90 and an 89 on OpenCritic.

Although Wilds began strongly, it seems to be receiving mixed feedback from players, particularly those who play it on a PC. At this moment, only about half of the 14,140 Steam reviews for the game are positive, giving it a “Mixed” rating, which is a warning sign on Valve’s platform for PC gaming.

Most unfavorable comments focus on poor optimization and frequent performance problems, despite the hardware used often exceeding the PC specifications for Monster Hunter Wilds. Additionally, both users and critics claim that the game is overly simple to play, a perspective shared in our review of Monster Hunter Wilds as well.

According to Windows Central Executive Editor Jez Cordon, if certain adjustments aren’t made, it’s uncertain whether Monster Hunter Wilds will match the longevity of its previous version. However, newcomers might find it more inviting due to a softer learning curve.

Despite some concerns about its PC performance and potential lack of difficulty for dedicated fans, many believe that the game offers a solid base for Capcom to build upon. This is because, similar to how Monster Hunter World (released in 2018) was continuously updated with significant improvements and additional content over time, there’s reason to anticipate the same for this 2025 sequel.

Well, it seems like you took a break from work using some of your sick days, hoping to enjoy Wilds but found it less satisfying than expected. Still, you’re off work today, which is certainly something I can’t boast about!

Currently, Monster Hunter Wilds might not be performing optimally, particularly on PC platforms, yet it holds a strong promise of becoming one of the top-tier Xbox games and PC games for fans of action role-playing game (ARPG) battles against colossal monsters. Typically retailing at $69.99, this deal brings down the price of the PC version to an affordable $58.79 on GreenManGaming.

2025-02-28 22:09

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