Palworld Guide: Beginner Tips & Tricks
Palworld is the latest open world craze that’s taking the PC world by storm right now. And the alpha has finally dropped! With fantastic art direction, some great mechanics and a moreish gameplay style, there’s plenty to see and do with this one.
The game itself is pretty long, and you’ll find yourself captivated by the world for hours so do expect that playtime to creep up quickly – especially if you want to try and collect everything and complete every achievement this game has to offer!
Before you dive in, we’ve put together a handy beginner’s guide full of tips and tricks for making the most of your playthrough. As always, if you have your own tips or hints for players, do let us know in the comments below!
Getting Started In The Open World
Palworld takes place in a large open world area that can certainly feel intimidating when you first load up the game. If you’ve ever played another survival title like Minecraft or Ark, the gameplay loop is largely the same. You need to collect resources in order to build gear that will help you progress further in the world.
When you first start the game, it’s worth bearing in mind some of the core mechanics. The game works on an autosave basis, so if you exit out the game (via the menu) it’ll save automatically. There’s also a handy Tutorial to follow that’s certainly useful to get you up and running.
First up, make sure you collect lots of wood and stone. Beyond punching trees Rocky Balboa style, you’ll find twigs and rocks across the ground that you can collect up. When you’ve gathered enough, build a Primitive Workbench first.
Next, be sure to use this to craft: A Bat (for hitting creatures and trees for extra wood) and a Pickaxe (for mining Stone, Ore and Paldium Fragments). You’ll find these large ore deposits in areas like this:
When you’ve gathered enough resources, be sure to make some Pal Spheres for the next part of the gameplay loop.
Catching & Taming Creatures
The aim of Palworld is inevitably to capture and train up Pals in order to become the strongest fighter in the world (and to catch ’em all but copyright and all that). In order to achieve these goals, you’re going to need to catch some Pals. After your Primitive Workbench, invest in building a Palbox. This will help keep captured Pals in stock, with the option of storing over 450 of them!
Once you’ve done this, make sure you grab some Pal Spheres (by building them at the Primitive Workbench) and heading into the world.
With Pal Spheres in hand, equip your Bat and start beating down some Pals. Just like in Pokemon, you need to weaken the Pals down in order to increase your percentage chance of capturing those creatures.
Throw a Pal Sphere directly at the Pal (preferably with it either with lower health or groggy) and if you’ve got a high percentage (anything over 65% ideally) then throw your Sphere. Be careful though because if the HP of the Pal reaches zero while a Pal is fighting alongside you, it could KO the Pal and leave you throwing the Sphere into nothing.
As you venture out into the world, you’ll also find Pal Spheres lying around, along with treasure chests and different variation of Pals too. Some of these will actually attack you with everything from ice blasts to dark attacks and more. Keep moving around and make sure you dodge these as best you can.
Avoid Death & Don’t Sleep At Night
Both of these may sound a bit like an oxymoron but bear with us while we explain. If you die in Palworld, you’ll respawn without any of your gear. You’ll then need to track to your previously KOed area and collect up all your gear again and hope you’re not killed before you do. Ideally, you want to make sure this doesn’t happen, so periodically check your stat menu and make sure your hunger doesn’t get too low. Similarly, that your HP doesn’t get too low. You won’t replenish HP immediately (unless you sleep) but it will gradually increase over time so stay out of trouble!
It’s also worth noting that extreme temperature variations – like hot and cold – can also make a big difference here.
More dangerous Pals come out at night and the world can be a dangerous place to traverse… unless you have some simple gear to help you. Make sure you build a hand-held torch from the Primitive Workbench and use the time at night to go exploring, collecting up gear and grabbing some rare Pals that are pretty strong and not too difficult to catch – especially Daedreams – this early in the game.
Sleeping at night can starve you of more adventure and given wood and stone are such big resource hogs this early on, you want to maximize as much time as possible to stock these up.
Levelling Up & Stat Placement
Palworld shares a lot of similarities to Pokémon, but it also has a very unique and clever risk/reward system. Basically everything you do will gain you Experience Points. Grabbing sticks and stones off the ground, all the way up to catching Pals, will help you level up.
However, unlike in Pokémon, you want to make sure you keep capturing the same creature constantly. You gain Exp bonuses for every Pal you collect, which can very quickly stack up to levelling very fast. Grabbing 10 Lamball, Chikipi and Cattiva is pretty easy to begin with and this starting area is a great place to hone your skills in doing this.
When it comes to stats, the two most important during the opening hours come from Stamina and Weight. Carrying Stone and Wood everywhere can quickly make you encumbered so make sure you level these up to avoid constant treks back and forth.
Likewise, Stamina will allow you to hit away at ore deposits or trees much longer than you otherwise would. These two in particular are crucial for survival this early on.
Unlock The Right Technology
With each level up, you’ll also gain technology points too. To access it, open up your menu and scroll across to the Technology tab:
Technology points used are permanent, so you’ll need to be wary in what you unlock this early on. However, you can gain more by unlocking Fast Travel points and every player level increase.
Make sure you unlock crucial components for helping out your Pals around the base, including beds and Pal feeds. If you’re unsure where to put your points, load up your Paldeck and check what it needs in order to unlock the next level, that will put you on the right track.
As you get deeper into the game, you’ll start to unlock Crushers and Mills, among other goodies that will help you speed up the process of creating materials.
Build A Shelter
In order to Build a Shelter, you’re going to need Wood. So make sure you have enough in your inventory and load up the Build screen. Now, shift across to “Foundations” and make sure you choose a Wooden Foundation first (pictured below).
This will basically serve as the floor of your Shelter. You can make it as big or as small as you like, but you’ll need to stick to the area of your Base. Once that’s done, simply connect up the walls and roof, put on a door (which you can lock with a password if you wish) and make sure there’s a bed inside. That’s it, that’s all there is to it! You can add extra items inside your Shelter if you wish, including Storage Boxes and other trinkets, but it’s a pretty straightforward task – and highly important for sleeping!
Pay Attention to Pal Base Skills
Different Pals have different specialities. Water-type Pals, for example, may be really good at watering crops, while others may be great at carrying goods. Given how varied and diverse your Base can become, especially as you autonomise each of the resource-gathering tasks, it’s a good idea to keep an eye on this via the Pal screen on the Menu.
Grab Everything In The World
The Open World in Palworld is absolutely littered with goodies. Along with simple resources like wood and stone, there’s also green glowing figures (Lifmunk Effigies) that will naturally increase your Pal catch rate when interacted with a Statue at the Base (which you’ll need to unlock separately via the Technology screen!) Be sure to grab these, along with bits of Lore just spread across the world too.
There’s also Skill fruit that will let you teach Pals specific moves, an even Eggs too, which can be put into Incubators that will eventually hatch into powerful Pals. There’s also plenty of secrets and unique Pals to gather too so what are you waiting for? Head out and explore that wonderful world!
Hopefully this guide will help you along the way in becoming the best Palworld hunter you can be! Are we missing anything here that you’d recommend players know before diving it? Do let us know in the comments below!