7 Palworld tips and tricks for beginners I wish I knew before starting the game

Palworld, player and Daedream.
(Image credit: Windows Central)

Palworld is one of those games that successfully brings together the best aspects from Pokémon, Minecraft, Ark: Survival, and a dash of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. There's a whole world of excitement with plenty of activities to discover. However, when you first start the game, it's hard to know what you can even do or how to do it. 

I've been playing Palworld for several hours and these are the most important and useful things I've learned for people just starting out. Without further ado, here are the best Palworld tips and tricks for beginners. 

1.) First, craft a Stone Pickaxe so you can make Pal Spheres and capture Pals

You need to craft Pal Spheres so you can capture Pals.  (Image credit: Pocketpair)

Palworld is a creature-collecting game that allows you to put any captured Pokémon Pals to work. In other words, the more Pals you have, the more resources you can gather. In turn, the more materials you have, the more objects you can craft and the more powerful your character can become. Thus, it's crucial to craft Poké Balls Pal Spheres to capture Pals with. 

However, before you can craft a Pal Sphere, you need to have a Primitive Workbench for crafting and a Stone Pickaxe to mine the Paldium Fragments necessary to create these capturing orbs. 

The Workbench requires 2 Wood to build while the Pickaxe requires 5 Wood and 5 Stone stone to craft at the Workbench, so collect a total of 7 Wood and 5 Stone to get started. When you have the materials you need, build the Primitive Workbench and then craft the Stone Pickaxe on it.

Once you have a Stone Pickaxe, locate sparkling boulders with blue veins and start whacking away at them to collect Paldium Fragments.

Hack away at these boulders with your Pickaxe to gather Paldium Fragments so you can make Pal Spheres.  (Image credit: Windows Central)

How to build a Primitive Workbench and craft a Stone Pickaxe

  1. Gather 7 Wood and 5 Stone
  2. Press B on PC to bring up the Building Menu. You can scroll your mouse to get to different tabs. 
  3. Select the Primitive Workbench and find a good place to build it. 
  4. Go up to the Primitive Workbench and craft a Stone Pickaxe. 
  5. Press F after crafting the Stone Pickaxe to pick it up. 
  6. Run around and smack nearby boulders that sparkle and have blue stones shining in them to collect Paldium Fragments. 
  7. Each Pal Sphere requires 1 Paldium Fragment, 3 Wood, and 3 Stone to craft. Collect the necessary materials.
  8. Return to the workbench and craft as many Pal Spheres as you can
  9. Press F at the Primitive Workbench to Acquire the Pal Spheres you crafted.
  10. Locate a wild Pal and hit it until its health is low
  11. Press Q to aim a Pal Sphere at the Pal. Note that the minute you let go you will throw the orb at the place you are pointing. Also, a percentage bar will appear telling you how likely it is for you to catch this Pal. The lower it's health the higher this number will be. 

What about wild Pal battles?

Palworld Elements Chart (type chart).  (Image credit: Windows Central)

As with Pokémon and other creature-collecting games, Pals each have an Element or type assigned to them. In general, each Element is weak to one Element and strong against another. Use this knowledge to your advantage when fighting wild Pals. 

When you come upon wild Pals, press E on PC to throw out one Pal from your party and it will attack the creature you attack. You can press 1 or 3 to rotate selected party members. Pressing 4 allows you to give it commands such as Don't attack or Attack aggressively. Beginners really shouldn't attack wild Pals that are more than three levels higher than they are or they can get defeated very easily.

NOTE: If you attack a wild Pal with friends, only one of you will be able to capture the Pal. But if it faints (drops to 0HP), no one can catch it.

2.) Keep yourself and your Pals fed to heal up

You can choose to feed yourself or your Pals. (Image credit: Windows Central)

Your character and any Pals you have in your party will get hungry over time. If you get to the starving point, you'll quickly lose health points (HP) until you only have 1HP left. Pals get hungrier faster if they are put to use via battles or using their special skills at your base. Once you've fed your character a decent amount, the health bar will slowly regain health on its own. 

Typically, the easiest way to get ahold of food at the start of the game is by collecting berries, which can be found on small bushes. Here's how to feed yourself and your Pals: 

How to feed yourself and Pals in Palworld

  1. Run up to berries or other food and press F on PC to add them to your inventory.
  2. Now press Esc to bring up the menu. 
  3. Go to the Inventory Tab and you should see any food you have on the left side of the screen. 
  4. Right-click on a specific food to bring up a list that includes your character and the Pals in your party. 
  5. Click on your name or your Pals to feed them

How do you heal a Pal who is at 0HP in Palworld?

If one of your Pals is Incapacitated at 0HP, then the only way to heal them up is by putting them in the Palbox. After placing them inside it, a countdown will tell you how long it will take before they are all healed up. In the meantime, consider taking other Pals adventuring with you.

What do I do if I'm knocked down and crawling in Palworld?

If you've reached 0HP in Palworld then you will be given a small amount of time to get revived. As long as another player comes up to you and revives you before time runs out, you can get up and continue playing. 

Do you drop all items and Pals in Palworld when dying?

Yes, if you die in Palworld, you'll drop all of your items as well as all of the Pals in your party where you fell. After respawning, you can run to the area where you fainted and pick up your items as long as no other player gets to them first.

What happens to my Pals and items if I die in a Palworld dungeon?

All of the Pals in your party and the items in your inventory will be dropped outside of the dungeon for you to retrieve. You'll just need to get to them before another player does or they can steal them. 

How do I heal my character in Palworld?

Eating food and making it so you are no longer hungry will make it so your health bar automatically gains health a bit at a time until full. You can also sleep in a bed to recover HP. 

3.) Build a Campfire or craft clothes to avoid cold damage at night

Building a Campfire allows you to stay warm at night and allows you to cook food.  (Image credit: Windows Central)

Once night falls, the game gets extremely dark and the temperature falls. As you noticed, your character is hardly wearing anything at all at the start of the game so they will get cold. Freezing damage can reduce your health so you'll need to build something to keep warm. You can unlock the ability to build or craft more objects from the Technology tab as you level up. 

Build a Campfire to stay warm and cook food: The fast fix to keep from freezing in Palworld is to build a Campfire (requires 10 Wood and Level 2 unlock) from the Food section of the Build menu and stay near it until morning. You can also cook gathered food at the Campfire to increase their nutritional benefits. Simply go up to the Campfire and press F on PC to see any recipes relating to things you've gathered. Cooking berries is the easiest thing to do at first.  

Craft clothes and a torch to stay warm and explore at night: Crafting clothes or the Cloth Outfit (requires 2 Cloth and Level 4 unlock) as well as a Hand-Held Torch (requires 2 Wood, 2 Stone, Level 1 unlock) at the Primitive Workbench will make it so you can wander freely while being able to illuminate the dark. You can get cloth by defeating wild Lamballs — the spherical sheep Pals. 

You can unlock more items to build and craft from the Technology tab as you level up.  (Image credit: Windows Central)

Note: If you don't see these crafting options available to you, press Esc on PC and go to the Technology tab. Each time you level up you unlock a new tier of objects to build or craft. Click on items to spend Technology Points so you can unlock new items. Then go and craft or build the things you've unlocked. 

How do you level up and earn Technology Points in Palworld?

You'll gain Technology Points as you level up, so keep exploring, collecting Pals, crafting objects, gathering materials, and building things to level up faster.

4.) Quickly capture several Pals and choose a safe place to set up your base

Once you have enough Pals, you can put them to work at your base.  (Image credit: Windows Central)

Different Pals have different skills and can be used to gather food, wood, stone, and other materials. Pals can eventually also be used to craft weapons and other items. Before you build workplaces for your Pals, take time to scout out a good flat area with plenty of resources and room to build.

When you build a Palbox, the region around it becomes your base. Build other structures for your base within the blue circle to reap the most benefits from the base. Additionally, each time you enter your base, you can also throw out one Pal from your party by pressing E on PC and if this creature can do anything to help it will immediately set to work. 

You can make your base more efficient by leveling it up and making use of the Palbox. Specifically, you can put any Pals you've captured to work at your base using this device. As for leveling up your base, you need to interact with the Palbox to see what objectives it asks of you and complete the missions that show up on the top right of the screen in the Tutorial box. 

5.) Private multiplayer requires that someone set up a Palworld Dedicated Server and port forward

Someone in your group needs to set up a Palworld Dedicated Server and port forward for everyone to connect to. (Image credit: Windows Central)

My friends and I had been planning to play Palworld for a few days before it opened in Early Access. So, we were surprised to see how clunky the actual private multiplayer set up process was. Remember, the game is in early access so multiplayer might get easier after a few updates.

For now, if you're on PC one person in your group needs to download the Palworld Dedicated Server on Steam and then set up a port forward so everyone else can connect. You can get more details on how to do this from our Palworld multiplayer and dedicated server guide.

Oh, and once you and your friends are in a world together, you might want to take time to run up to each other and hold F to join one guild. That way, you'll be able to build a joint base and reap the collective rewards of your various buildings. 

How do I open chat in Palworld?

If you're playing on PC, press Enter and a chatbox will open. Note that you cannot write too many characters or your words will get chopped off and the chat won't see the full message.

Does Palworld have voice chat or VOIP?

As of right now, Palworld does not support voice chat. To communicate verbally with other players, you'll have to facilitate another service like Discord or use your phone. You can also communicate in Palworld through text by pressing Enter in-game to bring up a chat box. 

6.) You can only fast travel by interacting with Fast Travel Statues or your Palbox

You can only fast travel by interacting with these bird statues or your Palbox.  (Image credit: Windows Central)

Unlike some other games out there, you cannot freely fast travel simply by opening your map. Explore and find new Fast Travel Statues and then interact with a Fast Travel Statue to jump to another statue on the map. You can also fast travel using the Palbox. 

7.) Collect glowing green Lifmunk Effigies to increase your Capture Power

My guild built a Statue of Power in our base so we could easily enhance our Capture Power by spending our collected Lifmunk Effigies. (Image credit: Pocketpair)

You've probably noticed that there are glowing green statues of the Pal Lifmunk all over the map — these are called Lifmunk Effigies. You want to collect as many of these as possible since they can be spent to increase your Capture Power. In other words, they can make it easier for you to capture wild Pals.  

In order to do this, you need to find a Statue of Power or build one and put it in your base. Then interact with the statue and trade the Lifmunk Effigies for enhanced stats. Note that unlike other items in Palworld, Lifmunk Effigies won't disappear if a friend picks one up. Each person can collect a Lifmunk Effigy from its location without depriving others of the chance to collect the statue. 

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Rebecca Spear
Gaming and News Editor

Self-professed gaming geek, Rebecca Spear, is one of Windows Central's editors and reviewers with a focus on gaming handhelds, PC gaming, and laptops. When she isn't checking out the latest games on Xbox Game Pass, PC, ROG Ally, or Steam Deck; she can be found digital drawing with a Wacom tablet. She's written thousands of articles with everything from editorials, reviews, previews, features, previews, and hardware reviews over the last few years. If you need information about anything gaming-related, her articles can help you out. She also loves testing game accessories and any new tech on the market. You can follow her @rrspear on X (formerly Twitter).