Palworld launches on January 19th into early access on PC, and thus far, it looks like a solid addition to the survival crafting and creature collection genres. With all the hype around the game and how it’s “Pokemon with guns”, what should you expect when jumping in? Check out 15 things you should know before buying Palworld.
World Settings
There are a range of settings for customizing the world, whether you’re a new player who wants a chill experience or a survival crafting veteran looking to up the stakes. You can adjust the speed of daytime and nighttime, the rate of EXP earned, Pal Capture Rate (and how often they appear), damage dealt and taken by Pals, and more. Enable or disable raid events or make it so that death causes you to drop all your items and Pals. You can change things up, even after a world has been created.
Character Creation
After a world is set, it’s time to create your character. There are multiple presets available, and you can adjust the size of arms, legs and torsos, select over 20 face types and 27 hairstyles, and six different voice types. It may not be the most in-depth character creator, but it does the job. However, you can’t edit your appearance after starting the game. A future update will add this feature later, so keep that in mind when creating a character.
Over 100 Pals
Palworld launches with over 100 Pals to collect, ranging from simple ones like Cattiva and Lamball to complex ones like Suzaku and Katress, with more coming during the early access period. There aren’t any evolutions (at least based on the Pals encountered thus far), but you can improve a Pal’s power by sacrificing duplicates into the Pal Condensation machine to raise their tier. Pal Souls discovered while exploring can also be used at a Statue of Power to increase their stats.
Pal Types and Passives
There are three types of Pals in the world – the standard ones, the Alpha Pals (more on that in a bit) and Lucky Pals, which are like Shinies. Standard Pals have your usual assortment of elemental affinities like fire, water, grass and neutral, and three skill slots (which can be customized freely – no forgetting skills). They also have passive skills, which are random, so one Cattiva may have ten percent increased movement speed while another deals 10 percent less damage. Lucky Pals can have the Rare passive, with work speed and attack both being 15 percent higher, making them ideal for capturing.
Partner Abilities
Regardless of their passives, each Pal has fixed work suitability. For example, a Penking, regardless if it’s Standard or Alpha, will always be suited for crafting items, transporting materials, watering farms, mining and cooling. As you progress through the game and capture more Pals, you can find others suited to several tasks. Also, pay attention to the different Partner Abilities that each offers. Some are abilities that can be activated in battle (with some requiring certain equipment), while others are passives, like granting elemental damage to player attacks.
Base Building
Base building is a key part of Palworld. You need to set up beds for your Pals to sleep in; food sources to keep them (and yourself) sustained; and even facilities like spas to keep their sanity in check. The Primitive Workbench is suitable for creating basic Pal Spheres, weapons, armor and materials, but as time goes on, you’ll have smelting furnaces to refine ores, power generators for electricity to manage Production Line Factories, Medicine Workbenches to craft medicinal items for Pals and much more. Completing missions raises your base levels and even allows for creating multiple bases.
Combat
Combat in Palworld consists of sending your Pal out to attack enemies and using your own weaponry, like crossbows, guns and explosives. It’s real-time, though there is a cooldown on Pal abilities, and though you can only have one Pal out at a time, some equipment allows for keeping others like Dazzi and Daedream by your side at all times to assist. Otherwise, you know the drill – exploit elemental weaknesses as best as possible to emerge victorious.
Different Regions
Though you start in the Plateau of Beginnings, several other regions await. Some of these range from the surrounding plains to rockier sections with massive over-looking bridges, and it’s not long before volcanic regions, extensive dunes and mysterious sites are found. If you’re keen on exploration, Palworld’s various nooks and crannies will keep you busy (especially when looking for Lifmunk Effigies to improve your Capture Power).
Dungeons
Dungeons aren’t too complicated in Palworld and consist of two types. The first involves venturing through a series of caves and taking on human enemies and wild Pals while discovering chests with loot. An Alpha Pal awaits at the end, and killing or capturing it clears the dungeon. The second Dungeon type, Sealed Realm, is even more straightforward. You interact with the glowing circle in an area and are teleported to the Alpha Pal to defeat.
Alpha Pals
Alpha Pals can be thought of as world bosses to a degree. They’re bigger, have much more health than your average Pal, and deal hefty damage. Sometimes they’re accompanied by other Pals in fights, though defeating them isn’t mandatory. You can capture them, and based on experience thus far, Alpha Pals are the only ones to offer only positive passives like decreased damage taken of an elemental type, less chance of getting hungry, etc. Regardless of whether you kill or capture them, you gain an Ancient Technology Point for clearing an Alpha Pal for the first time.
Settlements and Wandering Merchants
There’s more to the archipelago than just Pals and Dungeons. You’ll also happen upon settlements where human NPCs reside, just going about their day. While they provide more details on the surrounding region and world, these are the best spots to encounter Wandering Merchants who sell materials, items and even Pals for Gold.
Technologies and Ancient Technologies
As you level up in Palworld, you get Technology Points to unlock new items to craft, much like Ark: Survival Evolved. The best (and most resource-heavy) stuff behind higher levels. However, there are also Ancient Technologies, which require Ancient Technology Points from Alpha Pals. These can unlock things like the Egg Incubator for nurturing eggs into Pals, Feed Bags for automatically feeding yourself and Pals in your party and even a Grappling Gun.
Day/Night Cycle and Climates
As noted previously, there are days and nights in Palworld, which are worth paying attention to since certain Pals can only emerge during either time. Some regions also have different climates, whether excessively hot or cold (and sometimes both, depending on the time of day). You need armor to resist them and traverse the region, or suffer damage over time.
The Towers
Though you’ll encounter only two types of foes – humans and Pals – there are select places where rival Pal trainers are encountered. They’re located in towers dotting the world and can be difficult to beat if you walk in under-leveled and under-prepared. Nevertheless, Rayne Syndicate’s Tower is the first to conquer as part of the tutorial section. After that, you can travel to any other tower and attempt to beat the trainers within.
No PvP
Up to four players can co-op together in the same world, and you can make a dedicated server for up to 32 players, with options to create guilds. However, PvP isn’t available in the early access version, as Pocketpair stated, “We are currently testing PvP internally and experimenting with different approaches. We want to find the right type of PvP that fits Palworld, and when it is ready, we will share news with you all.”