The new critter-catching survival RPG Palworld throws you into an open world full of strange new creatures you can capture. In a world where you’ve got to fight to survive, it’s easy to make life harder for yourself than it needs to be.
If you’re just starting in Palworld, there are plenty of potential missteps, like repeatedly lighting yourself on fire by walking through your campfire. Not that I’d know anything about that, of course. We’re rounding up some Palworld tips and tricks so you can not just survive, but thrive in your new virtual landscape.
Related: How The Day & Night Cycle Works In Palworld
- Name Yourself at Character Creation… Or Else
- Craft A Pickaxe First
- Gather Berries Before Your First Nightfall
- Defeated Pals Drop Meat You Can Eat
- Build a Campfire As Soon As You Can
- Don’t Be Afraid to Use Stat Points for Weight
- Heat Causes Damage, So Watch Out for Your Campfire
- Pal Spheres Are Easily Lost, So Stock Up
- Some Pals Are Better Base Helpers Than Others
- How To Read Castaway Notes
Name Yourself at Character Creation… Or Else
Our first Palworld tip starts with character creation. It’s pretty easy to miss the name option in character creation, as it’s one of the first things to pop up when you may already be focused on picking your body and hair.
Your character can’t be changed after creation, so if you don’t choose a name at first, you’ll be assigned as Player with a random number after it. So unless you want to be Player 356 forever, look closely for the name box when you first start the game.
Craft A Pickaxe First
If you keep talking to the mysterious NPC you first meet in Palworld after they hand you some wood, they’ll tell you to start by building an axe or pickaxe. If you ignore them once you get the items from them like I did, you might not catch this tip. I think the pickaxe is the best first item to craft because you can get both stone and Paldium Fragments with it, which you’ll need to make Pal Spheres.
If you build a wooden club first because it’s first in the build list, you may regret it. While you can smack pals with it, the wooden club isn’t that versatile compared with the axe and pickaxe, which are both weapons and resource-gathering tools. Everything else you need to make early on requires stone, Paldium fragments, and wood, and while you can gather these things from the ground, it’s much easier to be able to harvest them more quickly.
Gather Berries Before Your First Nightfall
Like many survival games, Palworld features nighttime, when it gets cold and dark and difficult to explore. Make sure you stock up on food before the first night, lest you sit by your campfire hungry.
I recommend grabbing some berries because they’re plentiful in the starting area and don’t require cooking. You will also get seeds when gathering berries, which will be useful for building the berry plantation to level up your base and feed you and your Pals.
Defeated Pals Drop Meat You Can Eat
If you’re busy trying to catch ’em all and level up, you might not know that knocking out some Pals causes them to drop meat, which you can cook over a campfire as a food source.
Oh, and another reason to knock out those Chikipi instead of setting them to work at the base? Their meat can be eaten without the need to cook it, making it an ideal snack for your character when you’re on the go and get hungry without a campfire nearby. Chikipi also drops eggs, which can be cooked up and eaten as well.
Build a Campfire As Soon As You Can
Campfires are useful for cooking up raw meat and other tasty treats, but they’re also essential to surviving your first night in Palworld. Your character will take cold damage when the temperature drops at night, so you’re going to want to have a campfire build before the sun goes down.
You can also craft torches at the primitive workbench to keep yourself warmed up on the go, but it’s pretty hard to see at night so I prefer to stick close to camp and wait for daylight.
Don’t Be Afraid to Use Stat Points for Weight
If you play a lot of combat-heavy RPGs like I do, you might be tempted to put all of your stat points into offense, defense, and the like. However, don’t overlook the Weight stat, especially early on. This increases your carrying capacity, which means you can gather more resources and items before needing to head back to base to offload.
Trust me, having a low carrying capacity will get annoying quickly, so a good tip is to spend some stat points here early on.
Heat Causes Damage, So Watch Out for Your Campfire
Maybe this one seems obvious, but plenty of games let you walk through the fire of your creation without any incident. In Palworld, accidentally stepping in your campfire will set your character on fire, taking heat damage until the flames burn out.
I’ve yet to find a way to quickly put out the flame, so I suggest building the fire somewhere you’re not likely to step in it on the way to take care of important base camp business.
Pal Spheres Are Easily Lost, So Stock Up
Fun fact: if you’re a button masher like me and you accidentally press the button to throw your Pal Sphere, it will get used up for nothing. Early in the game, these are a precious resource you’ll need to catch Pals and advance your tutorial and base objectives, so you’ll want to craft as many as you can before wandering away from your workbench.
And yes, you can miss when you throw Pal Spheres at Pals, which also uses up the sphere. So be sure the crosshairs are centered on the pal you’re trying to catch before you toss the ball, or you risk running out before you snag the critter you want. Another helpful Pal Sphere tip: If you hold down on the Q key, you can pause to aim your throw more carefully and even cancel the throw altogether.
Some Pals Are Better Base Helpers Than Others
When you’re early in the game, you’ll encounter a lot of Chikipi, Cattvia, and Lamball. However, two of these Pals aren’t very helpful at camp. Basically, there’s a reason the tutorial has you catch 5 Lamball early, and it’s not just because they’re cute.
Chikipi is useless until you’ve got ranch and will just sort of wander around looking cute, so you’re better off knocking them out to get meat than catching them early on. Cattvia will get some work done, but it tends to be a slacker and will take a lot of breaks. So, if you want industrious pals to help you gather materials and build up your base, catch some Lamball and put them to work.
How To Read Castaway Notes
Palworld has a pretty in-depth tutorial for the basics, but that doesn’t mean we can’t get some help with some of the less intuitive menu options. As you explore the world, you’ll encounter chests with various items in them. Some of these items are survivor notes from journals of travelers past, and it’s not immediately clear how to read them.
To read the Castaway Journal notes you pick up, head to your in-game menu, then go to Options. From here, you can click on “Memo.” This will let you read the notes, which are a mix of interesting worldbuilding and tips and tricks for the game.
