10 Pals To Help You Out in Palworld's Early Game

When you’re just starting out in Palworld, it can be a little overwhelming. You’re thrown into a gorgeous rural vista with little in the way to guide you besides a bonfire and a shotgun-wielding Expedition Survivor, a crestfallen warrior who tells you to set up a base post-haste. 

And of course, you go off and do that, and build a nice workbench, and a couple crates, and then your friend Stevie Nichols who’s played the game before joins your multiplayer session and builds a useful yet aesthetically rubbish house, while swanning around with the penguin he caught before you even had a chance to craft a single Pal Sphere. 

So now you find yourself in a position where you need Pals both for your base, and to take around with you while trying to capture MORE Pals. Later in the game you’ll find awesome creatures like mammoths made of plants, or floating sea serpents, but you need a team of scrappy little lads to reach that point. And unlike certain other games, there’s no professor on hand to offer you a choice of three starter Pals. Therefore, it’s down to you to survey the menagerie of monsters on offer, and decide who’s gonna make up your team. 

These are the ten Pals that I personally recommend adopting for a balanced experience. Or simply because they’re adorable. 

1) Lamball

You’ll see these little guys everywhere. In fact, the game’s so keen for you to catch this fella that one of the first quests requires you to ensnare a bunch of them. This could be because they’re the most generic, simple Pals, but I think it’s because they’re so adorable that the developers don’t want you to miss them. You can even use a Lamball as a shield, but why would you do that? You should be shielding them. I would take a bullet for a Lamball, like Kevin Costner in The Bodyguard. 

2) Chikipi

It’s a chicken. A beautiful, lovely chicken. These fellas are good to assign to your base in the early game, cos they’ll lay eggs and do all sorts of manual work. If you make a team of Chickipis and Lamballs, you can pretend you’re playing Harvest Moon for a bit, at least until you get absolutely bodied by a level 38 Mammorest and are brought crashing back down to reality. But until then, the Chikipis create a wonderful pastoral fantasy.

3) Cattiva

This cat does some great work in your base. They’re good for mining, gathering and general handiwork. And if you take one out into the field, they’ll help you collect resources and improve your carrying capacity, which is super helpful when you’re walking at 1 meter an hour because you simply refuse to drop that pile of logs you worked hard to chop down. These cats are famously cowardly though, but they’re pink and adorable. And much like the previous two entries, you’ll encounter loads of these in early game. 

4) Cremis

Nobody really knows what kind of animal Cremis is. I think it’s a sheep-dog. Not a sheepdog, but a cross between- well, ewe get the point. It’s not the most exciting of Pals in terms of abilities - the Cremis will boost the attack power of any other Neutral element Pal in your party. But look, it’s one of the more adorable ones. And yes, I’m sure you’ve noticed the cosmic thing that keeps appearing in these screenshots. More on that later. 

5) Gumoss

Alright, this might not be the most useful Pal ever, but look at it! It’s like an acorn made of goo. What more could you want from a forever friend? And if you’re chopping down trees, this thing helps, which is nice. But look how eager it is to hug me. How could you say no to this face? And also there’s loads of them and they’re good to have in the base. 

6) Foxparks 

Alright, now we’re talking. Not only can you once again see how adorable the Gumoss is, you can also see me carrying my beloved Foxparks on my shoulder. This is a fire fox, but not the browser, because can you craft a harness for the browser then use it as a frickin’ flamethrower? No, I didn’t think so. But you can for the Foxparks. Once you unlock the crafting table to make Pal equipment, this is likely the first thing you’ll make. And this ain’t no vapid vulpine. The flamethrower ability does some hefty damage, so if you’re out to wreck some fools, you wanna be packing heat. 

7) Rushoar

There’s a good chance that if you catch a Rushoar, it’ll be your first mount. It’s not particularly fast, but it has two different attacks, including the ability to spit mud. Plus you get to ride around on a boar that looks a bit like a triceratops. If this won’t strike fear into those waddling Pengullets that are straight out of Lovecraft’s At The Mountains of Madness, then I don’t know what will. Just be sure to treat your Rushoar like you would a real boar, which is to say give it lots of pets. 

8) Daedream

Here it is. The levitating… thing in previous images. What is it? Who can really tell. Some kind of bunny with fabulous cosmic locks? Sure, why not. Not only does Daedream look like a My Little Pony creepypasta, but it also has one of the best abilities of any of the early game Pals. Once you can craft a necklace for this flamboyant friend, you only need to have it in your party for the creature to float alongside you, helping out with combat. That means you don’t need to summon it, and you can have another Pal out at the same time. While this can be a slight liability if you’re trying to catch Pals since you can’t dismiss Daedream, it more than makes up for this by allowing you to have such a powerful combatant just hanging out with you and your main pal. 

9) Syndicate Thug

It is unclear what kind of animal Syndicate Thug is based on. Possibly a skunk, based on the coloration. Maybe a squirrel. Some say a mouse. No matter what it is, you can set Syndicate Thug to work in your base, or you can take it out with you on missions, where it will fight alongside you with a baseball bat or a handgun. So it probably is a squirrel then, since we all know the relationship between squirrels and handguns. Make sure to Pet Syndicate Thug often, to show it that you care. 

10) Expedition Survivor

Remember how I mentioned Expedition Survivor in the very first paragraph? I thought she was this game’s version of Crestfallen Warrior from Dark Souls. This was after my initial encounter with her when I decided to see if you could attack NPCs in Palworld. You can. I then got absolutely shot to death by level 40 guards. This was before I’d even started a base. So later, I went back to talk to Expedition Survivor again and accidentally hit her with a baseball bat. I heard guards yelling in anger, and in the confusion I threw a Pal Sphere at Expedition Survivor. And then another. And that one caught her. And now I have Expedition Survivor on my team, rocking her chrome shotgun, ready to blast the heck out of anyone who threatens me, my creatures, or my base. So of course, she’s the best Pal you could ever want. Next time, I’m going to head to that one village and see if I can capture those guys too. And maybe some boss monsters, so I can give a run-down on Pals that aren’t absolutely everywhere in the starting area. 

But for now, I’m going to take Expedition Survivor, Syndicate Thug and Daedream into a cave and try to find a rideable squid and a gold-digging sphinx.