By Palworld Gaming Team · Updated 4 October 2026 · Palworld 1.0
Start by catching Lamball, Cattiva and Chikipi, gathering wood and stone, and placing a Palbox on flat ground near resources. Unlock core Technology recipes first, assign Pals to work, and eat cooked food. Save breeding for later — your first ten hours should build a stable base, a working team and stockpiles for exploration ahead.
Palworld 1.0 launched on 10 July 2026 after Early Access, with 287 Pals, a player level cap of 80, and late-game regions such as the Sunreach sky islands and the World Tree. Your first 10 hours have a simpler job: build a base that feeds itself, catch a team that can fight and work, and learn the core loop without wasting resources.
Catch three Pals, gather basic materials, and place a Palbox. Punch trees and rocks for wood and stone, craft your first tools and Pal Spheres, then weaken and catch the Pals near spawn — a Lamball, a Cattiva and a Chikipi cover fighting, carrying and early base work between them.
Next, place your Palbox on a flat spot. The Palbox is the heart of every base: it defines your base area, lets you assign Pals to jobs, and acts as a respawn and storage anchor. Add a bed for yourself, a feed box for your Pals, and a campfire. Cooked food keeps you and your Pals working instead of collapsing from hunger, so build that habit on day one. Do not sprint off to fight the first big creature you see — use the generous opening area to learn throwing spheres, commanding Pals in combat, and how work assignments function.
Build on flat, open ground near trees, stone and water, within a short run of where you spawn. Flat land matters more than anything else: buildings need level foundations and Pals need clear paths to workstations. If workers keep getting stuck on rocks or slopes, your base will feel broken no matter how good your Pals are.
You will outgrow base one — everyone does — so treat it as a workshop that funds exploration, not a forever home. Keep the Palbox and storage near the centre and production buildings around them. Short walking distances mean Pals spend their time working, not commuting. Later, once you know which resources you burn through fastest, place a second base beside them.
Lamball, Cattiva and Chikipi are the classic first catches, and Lifmunk is the early base worker to prioritise. All appear near the starting area, are easy to catch with basic spheres, and cover the jobs your first base needs.
Catch multiples of the basics rather than hunting one perfect Pal. Extra Pals fill work slots, and duplicates are never wasted later. When you are ready to plan beyond the early game, our best Pals picks show which creatures stay worth your time into the mid and late game.
Weaken the Pal first, then throw a Pal Sphere — the lower its health and the better your sphere, the higher your chance. The game shows a catch percentage as the sphere settles; if it is low, keep weakening rather than wasting spheres. Attack from behind for a bonus where you can, and do not let your own Pal land the killing blow on something you want to catch.
Always carry more spheres than you think you need — nothing stings like finding a rare Pal with an empty bag. Stronger Pals need better spheres, which unlock as you level. If a Pal keeps breaking out of everything you own, note where it lives and come back with the next tier.
Not in your first 10 hours. Breeding unlocks later, once you can build a Breeding Farm and produce Cake, and it becomes the main way to create Pals with perfect passive skills. Early on, those ingredients and that farm space are worth far more spent on food, spheres and upgrades.
Think of breeding as a second-phase project: first catch widely and build reserves, then set up the farm when your base produces food reliably. When that time comes, read the full Palworld breeding guide and plan pairs with the breeding calculator instead of guessing — a few minutes of planning saves hours of hatching the wrong eggs.
Unlock survival and production basics first: spheres, workstations, beds, food production and storage. Technology points arrive as you level and recipes unlock in tiers, so spend on anything that removes a bottleneck you hit every day.
Save a point when a level-up is close. New tiers often contain one unlock that transforms your routine, and it is frustrating to spend your last point on a decoration five minutes earlier.
The biggest mistakes are building on bad terrain, ignoring food, and spreading Technology points across novelties. Almost every frustrating first base traces back to one of these.
In your first 10 hours, the fundamentals are the same: catch, build, craft, explore. The 1.0 additions — 287 Pals, level cap 80, Sunreach, the World Tree and reworked Tower bosses — mostly affect where the game goes after your base is established, giving new players a much longer runway.
Catch freely — roughly a dozen or more. You need base workers covering your main jobs plus a combat party you are actively levelling. Duplicates are useful, and you will refine the team naturally as stronger species appear.
Check three things in order: are they fed, can they physically reach the workstation, and is a task actually queued? Most "lazy Pal" problems are a stuck path on uneven ground or an empty feed box. Moving the building a short distance fixes more issues than replacing the Pal.
Better spheres come from the Technology tree as you level. Match the sphere to the target: basic spheres for starter-area Pals, upgraded spheres for higher-level species. The catch percentage shown in game tells you honestly when a sphere is outclassed.
No. A second base in a better location is normal progression. Keep base one producing basics, scout flatter ground near the resources you use most, and move your main operation gradually — nothing about a beginner base justifies losing your levels, Pals and unlocks.