Palworld Starting Guide: 14 Simple Tips for Exploring Palpagos

The Palpagos Islands are filled with mystery and danger, but they don’t have to be a chore to live in. There are a lot of simple ways to make things easier on yourself and save time as you dive into this monster-collecting survival game, so here’s 14 tips and tricks you should know when you start a new world in Palworld.

Palworld Starting Guide

Build your base on a flat space with nearby ore

You’ll be farming ore yourself for some time before you’ll be able to automate it (or commanding your Pals to do so), and before too long, you’ll be able to build structures for harvesting both Wood and Stone, so it’s a very good idea to start your base nearby good ore locations. It does take some effort to move items from one base to another, so get your first one right. Also, pay close attention to your base layout. It helps with pathing to have storage chests nearby your farms and ranch so that your Pals don’t waste time traversing your base. Keeping it on flat land allows you to fully utilize the space for future development. Also, having your furnace, workbenches and ore storage close together ensures that you’re not spending too much time running heavy ore and ingots to and fro.

Don’t neglect your Pals!

This should go without saying, but one of the keys to a happy and productive base is to make sure your Pals have beds, and that they always have food in their Feed Box. Building and automating a Berry Plantation early on is the fastest way to ensure that your Pals never go hungry. To do this, you’ll need a Pal that can plant, such as Gumoss, a Pal that can water, such as Pengullet, and one that can harvest, such as Tarzee (who can also plant). While you can help out with any stage of these processes, automating the process and checking the Food Box ensures that you can spend extended periods exploring. A hot tub can also help keep Sanity levels in check.

Mark dungeons and boss-level Pals on your map as they will return from time to time

I find it helpful to mark dungeons, as you never know when they will return, so if you’re ever in the area, it’s worthwhile to stop by and check on them. Beating dungeon bosses will net you essential upgrade materials.

Explore at night to more easily find fast travel points and Lifmunk effigies

Don’t be afraid of exploring at night! By prioritizing building a fire and getting good clothes early on, you’ll be able to move around at night without taking damage. You’ll be able to sneak up and capture sleeping Pals. The game’s many Lifmunk effigies are far easier to see at night, as are new warp points. When redeemed at Statues of Power, Lifmunk effigies are key to increasing your capture rate, which makes a huge difference in your ability to capture high-level Pals.

Prioritize upgrading Health, Stamina, and Weight

While weight is very helpful for acquiring precious material and not having to drop too much between trips back to base, you may need Health to survive being one-shotted by bosses, and Stamina to run for longer periods, climb up higher walls, and for maximizing your time spent gliding. Attack and Work Time are far less essential, as the former only increases your attack power by small degrees initially as compared to upgrading your weapons, while you can rely on Pals to help reduce time spent working on your base.

Catch Tarzee, Pengullet, Vixy, Mau, and Foxparks early on

Tarzee are excellent early-game for their versatility - they can Plant and Harvest, as well as Lumber and Haul. Pengullet, which are common in the starting area, make good initial Pals for level 1 Watering, Cooling, Transport, and Handiwork. Mau, which can be found in dungeons, dig up endless Gold at your base, ensuring you’ll never be without the ability to buy rare Pals from merchants. Vixy unearths an infinite amount of Pal Spheres, and if you use a Condenser to combine multiple Vixy to Level 3, it can even dig up Mega Spheres. Foxparks is not only helpful for furnaces and cooking pots, but it’s a great combat Pal with the potential for massive AOE damage VS Syndicate Thugs, and its flames can light your way at night. I lucked out with a Shiny one.

Incubating eggs goes much faster by a campfire

Heat sources greatly speed up an egg’s incubation time. If you find yourself swamped with eggs, however, you can also change the World Settings to have eggs hatch quickly or even instantly.

You can capture NPCs such as black market merchants and bring them to your base

While the game’s flavor text informs you it’s considered highly unethical, you can actually fight, capture, and bring back NPCs such as black market merchants to your base, so that you don’t need to travel to them to peruse their wares. This is obviously a big time-saver, but catching them is risky as it triggers a Wanted state. If you have a flying mount, you can evade capture by flying up as high as you can. Captured or killed merchants will apparently regenerate after several hours. I prefer to leave the merchants in place and simply drop map markers, but I do have a loyal Syndicate Thug at my base, who helps me craft items such as Spheres and equipment.

Have multiple early-game mounts

Direhowl, which can be acquired very early on, is one of the game’s best Ground/Water mounts. It has excellent running speed and can cover a lot of distance. Eikthyrdeer is slower, but it can also swim, as well as double-jump ala Elden Ring’s Torrent, allowing for greater vertical mobility. I also recommend having multiple mounts so that if one faints and needs to be revived at a Pal Box, you have another one ready to go. Naturally, you’ll have to wait until the mid-game to get decent flying mounts, but you’ll be able to find Nitewing and Vanawyrm fairly early on, though unlocking their saddles will take some time.

While lightly overburdened, you can still sprint

You’ll undoubtedly get overburdened at some point in the early game. While this could be attributed to early-access jank, at the time of this writing, you can drop a bunch of items, then dash over them and pick them up while dashing without stopping, albeit at a slightly lower speed. This will only work if you’re overburdened by just a small amount, however.

Butchering a caught Pal will yield additional resources

It’s worth spending the Technology points to unlock the Meat Cleaver. Catching and subsequently butchering even boss-level Pals will double the yield of items you’ll acquire from them.

Don’t be afraid to adjust the World Settings as needed

While I understand keeping the difficulty and settings set at Normal to keep the challenge consistent, it’s easy to adjust the World Settings by quitting to the main menu. In a few clicks, you can simplify certain otherwise menial tasks and reduce time spent with busywork such as crafting or hatching eggs. If you want a longer day or night cycle, for instance, it’s just one menu option away. When doing some risky exploring, for instance, I removed the death penalty so that I could explore in different directions if and when I died, for a change of pace.

Pay close attention to Pal traits

Not all Pals are created equal. You might net an amazing Pal only to discover that it has negative traits that make it more of a liability than an asset. On that note, keep an eye out for the best Pal traits for breeding and condensing purposes, and be sure to avoid assigning Pals with negative traits to work.

Save your Pal Souls!

It may be tempting to utilize Pal Souls to upgrade many Pals, but due to their relative rarity, it’s more prudent to save them up for the final, most optimized versions of your party Pals.

By taking heed of these tips, you should be well on your way to early-game success in Palworld and ready to tackle the first major boss, reach level 20, and explore the lands beyond. Do you have any early-game tips or tricks for starting out in Palworld? If so, please let us know in the comments!

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