Palworld 1.0 Early Game Guide: Key Pals, Tools, and First Base Setup
There’s a lot to do in Palworld, and if you want a smoother early game, it helps to know which Pals, tools, and base locations matter most right from the start. This guide walks through practical early-game steps—everything from what to pick up quickly to how to set up your first couple of bases—so you can build momentum instead of scrambling later.
If you’d like to make Palworld more comfortable or lean into a tougher challenge, the game’s custom settings let you tailor the experience to how you like to play.
When you create a new character, you’ll be handed a chain of tasks that ultimately results in the formation of your first base. It isn’t the flashiest part of the game, but completing it is important for two reasons: you’ll end up with a functioning base that includes the basic amenities needed for steady progression, and the tasks reward enough experience to unlock several key blueprints you’ll want down the line.
The tutorial covers most of the fundamentals you need to know, but you don’t have to grind through every single step. Keep following it until your base looks and feels right for you, then shift your focus to bigger priorities.
By the time you finish the tutorial sequence, you should have basic tools, armor, and an energy shield. Make it a habit to upgrade these as soon as you can, since early upgrades make a noticeable difference in survival, combat, and efficiency.
If you head west from the starting zone, you’ll see Eikthyrdeers and Foxparkses roaming around the fields. These two are some of the strongest early-game captures because Eikthyrdeers excel at woodcutting—having a few in your base means you can largely stop manually cutting trees. Foxparkses, meanwhile, are useful for powering campfires and furnaces, which enables automated cooking and smelting.
Both of them also support saddle crafting. With the right saddles, Eikthyrdeers can serve as combat-capable mounts, while Foxparkses can be used as handheld flamethrowers that outperform many of the early weapons you can craft. There’s a catch: the flamethrower comes with a 100-second cooldown. Once you have saddles for both Pals, you can lean on them instead of relying on basic weapons during early fights.
Eikthyrdeer attacks are strong against enemies in the first zones, which can be helpful—but it can also make it harder to capture additional Pals without accidentally killing them. If you want to reduce that risk, equip a Ring of Mercy. You can research the blueprint in the tech tree using Ancient Technology Points.
Early on, it’s worth pushing boss fights whenever possible to earn more Ancient Technology Points. That includes tower bosses, world bosses, and human bounty targets.
There’s also a special rule for one Pal: normally, you can only summon a single Pal from your party to assist you in combat or exploration. Daedreams are different. As long as you have one in your party, it will hover near you and launch follow-up attacks whenever you strike targets. That makes Daedreams especially valuable early in Palworld, since their attacks can hit harder than your own output when you’re still stuck with primitive gear.
You can locate Daedreams across the hills of the starting region, but they only appear at night. They can also show up inside dungeons regardless of the time of day.
Eikthyrdeer mounts are fantastic for moving around the open world, but they can’t fly and they can’t climb walls. To make cliff traversal less painful, craft a Grappling Hook as soon as you’re able. The recipe becomes available in the tech tree when you reach level 12, but you’ll need to spend Ancient Technology Points to unlock it.
If you want even easier vertical movement, catch a Croajiro. It can use the Leap Stance ability to launch you high into the air, helping you bypass elevation problems without relying purely on rope-based climbing.
For your second base, consider the spot shown on the map above: it’s a small area with multiple copper ore nodes. It’s ideal for an early expansion because you can turn it into a dedicated mining and smelting setup for producing Ingots.
To build a second base, you must upgrade your Base Level until the base limit increases from 1 to 2. Don’t let base building fall behind, because the expansion only becomes available when your Base Level supports it.
Once you’ve found the mining area, place another Palbox nearby and set up a chest or two to store the ores you gather. If your goal is to automate mining, you’ll need Pals that have a level 2 Mining skill.
On the subject of mining specialists, the best early captures are Incinerams. They’re typically found on the high-level volcanic island far to the west, but lower-level Incinerams can be spotted near the Windswept Island Watchtower, as marked on the map above. When you arrive, you’ll find a couple of Syndicate goons near the watchtower. One will summon a Leezpunk, and the other will summon an Incineram. Wait for the Incineram to appear, then throw a Palsphere at it until you capture it.
Incinerams are built for mining operations. They can mine ore nodes, run furnaces, and handle Handiwork tasks. If you pair them with Pals that can grow food, you can cover the core needs of an autonomous mining outpost. Also, don’t forget to build Hot Springs for your Pals, since failing to meet their comfort needs can push them toward going insane.
Egg Incubators are another major early tool because they allow you to hatch Pal eggs you find in the world. That means you can obtain Pals earlier than you would normally see them, depending on what you incubate. In one playthrough, a Tarantriss was hatched very early, and after that, land travel problems disappeared for good.
The downside is that incubation results are completely random. You can narrow down which Pals you’re likely to hatch by choosing the right eggs, but the final outcome still depends on chance. This isn’t as critical as some other early-game tips, but it still matters because a good incubated catch can dramatically improve your start in Palworld.
If you’d rather travel by air, try to find and capture a Nitewing. These Pals spawn to the west of the starting hills, around the Sealed Realm of the Ardent fast travel point located just beyond the Small Settlement.
Nitewings appear during the morning. Before you can use them as mounts, you’ll need to research the Nitewing Saddle in the tech tree, and that saddle option only becomes available once you reach level 15.
