Palworld Is a Refreshing Pokémon Twist on Survival Crafting

Many initial impressions of Palworld have touted it as Pokémon with guns and that’s sure part of it. As you play through the game, though, you’ll find the game goes above and beyond that label.

While you won’t be walking around Pallet Town and naming your rival ‘Douche Face’, you will be shooting Pikachu-like creatures in the face with a Glock and capturing their families with Pokeball-style devices to labor for free in your base! Well… almost free. You will need to feed your captured Pals and provide them with shelter. If not, they’ll eventually go on strike and even die if you ignore them too long.

To begin with the shelters, the survival crafting aspect of the game is rather amazing. Harvesting materials with the help of your Pals, constructing a house, and setting up a base are all very smooth. Pals will automatically help you to gather and build when assigned to your base, which is awesome. I’ve been looking for a new top-tier survival crafting game since Valheim released in Early Access back in 2021. I’m pleased to say that, thus far, I’ve enjoyed Palworld more than Valheim. With clean crafting mechanics and the company of your Pals with you, it’s a satisfying experience that makes the world feel full of life.

After capturing a whole bunch of Pals in the classic Pokemon style of bashing them in the head with a club and stuffing them in a Pal Sphere, I quickly went Age of Empires on the game. I built a Red Berry farm and set some Pals to work foraging for me. Then, I set the rest to mine stone and gather wood that would allow me to expand my empire. Completing base upgrade missions levels up your base, meaning you can assign more Pals to work in it. It’s a satisfying progression cycle as you watch your base fill up with hardworking Pals.

Once you’re a bit further into the game, you can start building stronger weapons and venturing out in the world. That’s when things get a little wild. You’ll start encountering more unique and powerful Pals. One thing you should be aware of in Palword is that level differences, stats, and gear are all very impactful. If you’re underleveled compared to a tough Pal and you’ve only got basic gear, chances are you’re going to get stomped.

I found this out the hard way early on when I stumbled across a giant Mammorest near the starting area. Armed with my wooden club and a level 5 Cattiva, I ran up and tried to break its tree trunk legs with my club. Cattiva caught the Mammorest’s attention first, swiftly catching the business end of its powerful trunk and going down in short order. As Cattiva’s body went sliding past me, I kept whacking the beast before looking up and seeing how very, very little damage I was dealing. Moments later, my lifeless corpse sailed into the nearby tree and I was back at my spawn point. If you’re underleveled and underprepared, don’t mess with strong Pals!

Once you’re geared up with body armor, an AK, and some juiced up stats with equally juiced up Pals at your side, then you should be good to take on some tougher Pals. The fights against rarer, higher level Pals are quite challenging. They also have quite a low capture rate, so make sure you’re well stock with good quality Pal Spheres if you’re hoping to add them to your collection. You’ll likely go through quite a few Spheres before you finally get that rare Pal to stay inside.

A good strategy for wearing down tough rare Pals is to command one of your most tanky Pals to attack first. They’ll draw the aggro of the Pal you’re engaging, which frees you up to make use of different weapons and angles to wear down the Pal enough to start trying to capture it. It’s a very familiar process if you’ve played games like Pokemon before, except this time you’re not just relying on your Pal; you’re working alongside it — with your guns!

Palworld features a big world with plenty of biomes to explore and monsters to fight and capture. You can build up a diverse collection of Pals as you strive to catch ’em all and put them to work. As you level up, add more Pals to your base, and create more structures, you’ll quickly build out an empire fueled by the free labor of many, many Pals. Developing your base from a basic resting place into a veritable fortress/sweatshop is an extremely satisfying progression loop. And once you’ve achieved that, you can sit back, relax on top of one of your rideable Pals, and watch as your hardworking, self-sustaining empire generates everything you need!