Updated:
Readtime: 5 min
Every product is carefully selected by our editors and experts. If you buy from a link, we may earn a commission. Learn more. For more information on how we test products, click here.
- Grand Theft Auto VI is set to launch on November 19, 2026
- Aussie workers are ditching fake sickies to request transparent leave for GTA VI‘s 19 November launch.
- HR departments are bracing for staffing shortages, while the US Army is offering GTA VI time off to boost reenlistment.
In 1983, after Australia II broke its America’s Cup drought, Prime Minister Bob Hawke famously endorsed the national sickie: “Any boss who sacks anyone for not turning up today is a bum.” Forty-three years later, Australian workers are circling Thursday, 19 November 2026 – the launch of Grand Theft Auto VI – for a very different kind of day off.
But rather than pulling fake sickies, a growing wave of employees are submitting upfront, transparent leave requests to spend the week gaming.
What used to be a cheeky workplace excuse has evolved into a full-scale corporate headache. Australian HR departments are already warning teams against stacking leave around launch week, while overseas, the phenomenon has grown so massive that even the US Army is using GTA VI launch leave as an official reenlistment incentive.
From Sydney offices to global boardrooms, the struggle between worker autonomy and operational continuity is being put to the test, and it starts with employees like “Derek,” a mid-30s corporate worker who put a very clear note on his leave form: “GTA6 Release date, do not contact. F*** this place.“
Why Workers Are Booking Leave for the GTA VI Launch
Derek’s employer knows exactly what he’ll be doing with his time off, and apparently, nobody seems particularly troubled by the whole thing.
“I’m fortunate to have a workplace like I do, we laugh and don’t take anything too serious,” he told Man of Many.
When his GTA leave request landed, he described the reaction as “pretty lacklustre”. A few colleagues are planning to buy the game themselves, although none have committed the same amount of paid leave to the cause.
That kind of honesty isn’t unique to Derek. Over on Reddit, one employee claimed they submitted a leave request openly stating they wanted 19 to 25 November off “to play GTA 6”. According to the poster, their manager’s response was simply: “Enjoy.”
Derek is dipping into his accrued long service leave for what he describes as a gaming staycation. He’s taken single days off for releases like Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2, XCOM 2 and The Last of Us Part II before, but never an entire week. With GTA VI, he wants enough time to explore rather than sprint through everything Rockstar has prepared in a single day.
“I have no problem avoiding the storyline and just seeing the work and design that has gone into the game world,” he said. “GTA and Red Dead are my favourites for this.”
For Derek, taking leave for GTA VI is all about switching off for a few days and diving back into the nostalgia of a franchise that has been with him for more than two decades.
“It’s just sort of always been there in the pivotal moments of life and I suppose it’s become a grounding rod that allows me to remember that time in my life with a constancy that other media or events don’t seem to.”
But his gaming staycation has limits: “Will I be playing 16 hours a day every day? No, I’m not sweaty. After all, I do have other things that are higher priority, like showering and pissing in a proper toilet, not an empty 7-Up bottle”
The Great Global ‘GTA VI’ Release Date Sickie
Derek already knows three other people planning time off around launch, and he suspects Thursday and Friday will be particularly popular for anyone looking to turn GTA VI into a four-day weekend.
And you don’t have to spend too much time online to hear Australian workers discussing the same thing.
One r/auscorp thread centred on an employee trying to take roughly 19 to 27 November off after management reportedly noticed several people requesting leave around the same period. Another post celebrated getting leave approved from 19 November right through to January with the words: “If you know, you know.”
Oh, we all know. People are booking time off to play the game, and some workplaces are already seeing the requests stack up. But Australian office leave calendars aren’t the only places contending with the release.
In August, the Associated Press reported that the US Army’s 9th Brigade Engineer Battalion at Fort Stewart, Georgia, was offering eligible soldiers a four-day pass timed around GTA VI‘s launch if they reenlisted. At least 20 of roughly 130 eligible soldiers reportedly agreed to sign on for at least another two years.
When a video game launch starts appearing in military retention packages, the joke about everyone taking the day off becomes considerably harder to dismiss. Even Rockstar’s parent company is playing along. Take-Two CEO Strauss Zelnick has joked that “a lot of people will be calling in sick on November 19.”
Some of the teenagers and uni students who disappeared into Los Santos in 2013 now have careers, accrued leave and bosses who know exactly what Grand Theft Auto is.
Derek doesn’t see much reason to dress his week off up as anything more respectable.
“It’s my time off and I can do whatever I want with it, who are you to judge.”
And if his employer had knocked the leave back? He would’ve relied on a good old-fashioned Sickie, of course.
Comments
We love hearing from you. or to leave a comment.