Palworld 1.0 Beginner’s Guide: How to Start, Build a Base, Catch Pals and Explore

Palworld 1.0 gives you a lot to manage from the beginning. You need to gather materials, build a base, catch useful Pals, unlock Technology, explore dungeons, find mounts and improve your character without wasting early resources.

This beginner’s guide explains how to start efficiently, where to build your first base, how to spend stat points, which early Pals are worth catching, how to improve capture attempts, and how to move around the map more easily.

How to Set Up Your Game and Spend Stat Points

Before building your first base, check a few settings that make Palworld much easier to play.

Turn on Single Button Press for Hold Interactions. This lets you begin a long crafting or building action with one press instead of holding the button the entire time.

Learn your Auto Run control as well. It is useful when travelling across long stretches of land or water because you do not need to hold the movement button continuously.

PC players can also adjust the field of view. A wider field of view gives you more information around the character, although some players may not like the fisheye effect.

When you begin earning stat points, focus mainly on:

1. Weight
2. Stamina
3. Health

Weight starts at 300, so increasing it early makes gathering Wood, Stone, Ore and other materials much easier. A useful target is around 1,000 Weight.

A simple way to spend points is to place several points into Weight, then add occasional points to Stamina. Work towards roughly 200 Stamina so you can climb, glide and sprint for longer.

After that, begin adding points to Health as enemies become stronger.

Avoid spending early stat points on Work Speed because your Pals should handle most crafting and base work. Attack also scales poorly during the early game, so it is better saved for much later.

Dungeon potions can still increase stats such as Attack or Work Speed without using your level-up points. Use those when you find them.

How to Build Your First Base

A strong first base needs flat land, nearby resources and enough room for future structures.

One useful early base location is around -231, -486, downhill from the starting area. The area has:

• Flat ground
• Trees
• Stone
• Red Berries
• One Ore node
• Nearby Paldium resources
• Space for Pal beds, storage and production structures

Place the Palbox near the centre of the open area so the blue base circle includes as much usable land as possible.

A good position is roughly between the nearby Ore, Stone and tree line. This helps include the flat ground, nearby resources and the raised ramp area inside the base radius.

The ramp can be used for smaller structures such as chests or Pal beds, while the main flat area remains available for workstations and larger facilities.

Your base also acts as a fast travel point, so it is better to place it between existing fast travel statues rather than directly beside one.

Before placing the Palbox and workstations, chop down two or three trees and build a small platform with Wooden Foundations. Starting with level ground makes every later structure easier to organise.

Do not place foundations over natural resources that you want to keep. Trees, Stone, Ore and similar nodes may stop returning if you build directly over their spawn points.

The early quest path teaches the main setup:

• Activate the first fast travel statue
• Speak to the person near the campfire
• Gather Wood and Stone
• Build a Primitive Workbench
• Continue the early tasks
• Unlock and build the Palbox

Near the top of the waterfall and river area, there is also a chest containing a lore item. It is worth collecting while you are nearby.

Building can sometimes feel inconsistent. A structure may still place even if part of it sits outside the blue base boundary, as long as enough of it remains inside and the placement turns blue.

Rotate structures, adjust their height and try different foundation positions when something refuses to place. Large structures can sometimes fit across ledges or partly outside the circle with careful positioning.

How to Choose the Best Early Base Pals

Your first base needs Pals that can cover the main Work Suitabilities:

• Handiwork
• Mining
• Logging
• Planting
• Watering
• Gathering
• Transporting
• Kindling
• Farming

Lamball is useful for early Handiwork and can produce Wool in a Ranch.

Cattiva is one of the strongest early general workers because it can handle Handiwork, Mining, Gathering and Transporting. Keeping one in your party also increases your carrying capacity by 100.

Pappyrat is useful for Logging. Assigning one to the base helps clear nearby trees and gives you a steady supply of Wood.

For farming, you need a combination of Planting, Watering and Gathering.

Gumoss can handle Planting, while Pengullet is an early Watering Pal. Cattiva can help with Gathering after crops are ready.

Croajiro is another useful early worker because it can handle Watering, Handiwork, Gathering and Transporting.

Clovee provides Planting and Gathering, while Herbil can cover Planting, Gathering and Transporting. Pals with several Work Suitabilities are usually more useful than Pals that only perform one task.

For Kindling, catch Foxparks. It can cook food, smelt Ore and use its harness as an early combat weapon.

You can find many of these early Pals by travelling down from the starting area, following the trail through the ruins and moving towards the first tower.

How to Use the Ranch

The Ranch is one of the most useful early base structures because different Pals can produce different materials without leaving the base.

Useful Ranch Pals include:

• Lamball: Wool
• Chikipi: Eggs
• Vixy: Pal Spheres, Arrows and other useful items
• Caprity: Red Berries
• Beegarde: Honey
• Depresso: Venom Glands
• Cawgnito: Bones
• Vaelet: Seeds

Some Fire-type Ranch Pals can produce Flame Organs, while some Water-type Ranch Pals can produce Pal Fluids.

Vixy is especially valuable early because free Pal Spheres and Arrows reduce how often you need to craft them.

Caprity can help keep your Feed Box supplied with Red Berries while also contributing to Planting.

As your base grows, use Ranch Pals to reduce the amount of gathering you need to do manually.

How to Catch Pals More Easily

When holding a Pal Sphere and aiming at a Pal, check the capture information before throwing it.

Attacking from behind gives a back bonus. Hitting the head can deal critical damage, which helps lower health faster.

Reducing a Pal to very low health improves the capture chance, but it is easy to defeat weaker Pals accidentally.

The Ring of Mercy prevents your attacks from reducing a target below one health. This makes it much easier to prepare Pals for capture.

Daedream is another excellent early capture. Daedream appears at night, so take a night trip and catch several.

With its Partner Skill item unlocked, multiple Daedream can remain active beside your main Pal and assist in combat. Their attacks are useful for weakening targets while you prepare a Pal Sphere.

A useful early party can include:

• One Cattiva for carrying capacity
• Three Daedream for combat support
• One mount or stronger combat Pal

When choosing a Sphere, aim at the Pal and cycle through the Sphere types to compare the displayed capture chance.

Better Spheres can greatly increase the chance against stronger Pals, but you should avoid wasting rare Spheres on targets that can be caught with a cheaper option.

Back attacks, low health and stronger Spheres all improve the final chance.

Later, Sphere Modules can improve range or capture strength while remaining in your inventory.

Catch five of the same Pal whenever possible. Reaching the five-capture milestone rewards an Effigy that can later be used to improve different player bonuses.

How to Explore Dungeons and Early Areas

The first early dungeon can be found near the tower area and has a level 13 boss.

Dungeon entrances have a turquoise glow, making them easier to recognise.

Dungeons can contain:

• Treasure chests
• Hidden paths
• Vertical rooms
• Stat-boosting potions
• A boss at the end

Look upward in tall rooms because treasure or routes may be above the main path.

A Grappling Gun becomes very useful inside dungeons because it lets you reach high ledges and cross large rooms.

The same early region around the starting area contains most of the Pals needed to get your first base running. You do not need to travel into dangerous high-level zones immediately.

Rushoar can help with Mining and can also be used as a ground mount.

Mozzarina is useful for Milk, which becomes important later for Cake and breeding.

Explore around the ruins, tower, nearby church and surrounding hills to collect a wide variety of early workers and mounts.

How to Get the Best Early Mounts

A ground mount should be one of your first major goals because it makes exploration much faster.

Good early ground mounts include:

• Direhowl
• Eikthyrdeer
• Rushoar

Direhowl is a fast early option and can often be found around the red-leaf and red-soil areas.

Eikthyrdeer is another strong early running mount, although you may need a better Sphere to catch one reliably.

Rushoar is not as fast, but it can help with Mining and still gives you mounted travel.

For your first flying mount, look for Nitewing near the area north of the first tower and around the nearby church.

Nitewing is not especially fast, but flight lets you cross cliffs, rivers and gaps that would otherwise slow you down.

Galeclaw is another useful early movement Pal when you find one.

For water travel, catch Chillet.

Chillet is an early Alpha Pal and one of the best early options for moving across water. This is important because the map contains large gaps between islands, and early flying mounts can run out of stamina.

Chillet can also serve as a ground mount and gives you access to Dragon-type attacks.

A balanced travel party can include:

• A ground mount
• Nitewing or another flyer
• Chillet for water
• Cattiva for Weight
• One combat or support Pal

How to Fish in Palworld 1.0

Fishing requires a fishing rod and bait.

Better rods and better bait make difficult catches easier.

After casting, wait for the alert and begin reeling. Keep the moving indicator close to the fish while managing the tension.

Beginner catches move slowly, while stronger or rarer fish move much more aggressively.

Use your best bait and rod for shiny or high-difficulty fishing spots. Attempting them with weak gear can make the reeling section much harder.

How to Grapple Glide

Once you unlock a Grappling Gun and glider, you can use grapple gliding to travel much faster.

The basic method is:

1. Aim the Grappling Gun slightly downward.
2. Fire it and build momentum.
3. Cancel the grapple movement using the dodge control.
4. Immediately open the glider.
5. Keep the grapple momentum while gliding.

On PC, the cancel input may use the same button as dodge.

Grapple gliding lets you travel farther and faster than a normal glide while using the same stamina.

It is especially useful when:

• You do not have a flying mount
• Your flying mount has low stamina
• You need to cross a large gap
• You want to reach a high point quickly
• You are exploring vertical dungeon rooms

Practise the timing on open ground before relying on it over dangerous terrain.

How to Manage Heat and Cold

The temperature gauge appears near the health, shield and hunger bars.

The centre of the gauge represents comfortable temperatures. Moving towards blue means the environment is becoming colder, while moving towards red means it is becoming hotter.

Armour can provide Heat Resistance and Cold Resistance, but active Pals can also help adjust your temperature.

A Fire Pal can help keep you warm in cold areas.

An Ice Pal can help cool you down in hot areas.

When exploring unknown regions, carry both a Fire Pal and an Ice Pal in your party. This gives you a way to react when the environment becomes hotter or colder than expected.

Later armour and accessories provide stronger resistance, but using Pals is useful throughout the early and mid game.

How to Progress After Your First Base

Once your base is stable, continue gathering resources and moving through the Technology tree.

Important progression goals include:

• Egg Incubator
• Metal tools and weapons
• Furnaces
• Ingots
• Better armour
• Metal storage
• Grappling Gun
• Ring of Mercy
• Pal Essence Condenser
• Breeding Farm

Egg Incubators let you hatch the large eggs found while exploring.

Metal tools, weapons and armour make the next areas much easier.

The Pal Essence Condenser lets you combine duplicate Pals to strengthen one Pal.

The Breeding Farm lets two Pals produce an egg when Cake is available. Different breeding combinations can create useful Pals much earlier than finding them naturally.

Try to catch at least one of every Pal you encounter. Many Pals unlock special saddles, harnesses, weapons or Partner Skills in the Technology tree.

A strong start in Palworld 1.0 comes from building on flat ground, covering every important Work Suitability, catching useful travel Pals, improving your capture tools and progressing through Technology without wasting early stat points.