Palworld has been out for almost a year now and it was my personal 2024 Game of the Year (GotY). I have no idea how a PS exclusive kid's game won and how Palworld wasn't even nominated, clearly due to journalists being paid off by Sony and being scared of Nintendo.
Palworld is everything aging Pokemon fans have wanted for years. A true 3rd person action adventure open world Pokemon style game. Adding survival crafting with working Pals in your base really takes it to the next step.
Since launch Palworld has added 2 major expansions which added new raids, tower bosses, new pals, new abilities, new gear, new weapons, and more. This allowed for more exploration, more collecting, more breeding, more base building, and overall more content. These updates also fixed many bugs and added more quality of life to the game.
Overall the gameplay, graphics, and support of this game are A-tier. It's truly a fun game and worth the purchase. If you're a fan of survival crafting, open world exploration, 3rd person combat, and/or a pokemon style game then I highly recommend this game for you. You don't have to enjoy all those things to enjoy this game though as there's something for everyone.
This game is way better with mods. You can allow for more bases, bigger bases, more pals in your bases, and more QoL around crafting, base management, and player power. Just ensure you follow the mod instructions and only use upgraded mods for the latest expansion. You can tell on Nexusmods by looking at the date of last update. However, if you want a non-modded playthrough I give credit to Pocketpair for adding tons of game customization options. You can edit so many things about your playthrough AND you can change them later if you don't like something. Everything from difficulty, resource production, catch rate, and more.
For your playthrough you are guided to focus on exploring, capturing pals, managing your base, and eventually taking down tower bosses. There are now 7 tower bosses and defeating each one unlocks your next tier of crafting gear, weapons, and production in your base(s).
The game starts you in the southern most region of the middle continent. Behind you is an abandoned castle and that's where I always build my starter base. There's enough space to craft all the basics and have a handful of pals manage it. If you have base raids turned on in settings then ensure you block off the stairs down into the castle as it'll buy you time to take out the invaders who always come through that hallway.
Tower 1: Rayne Syndicate. Zoe and Grizzbolt. This tower is in the forest region of the default starting area just north of where you start. You can take on this boss at level 10. This boss is relatively easy. Since grizzbolt is electric focus on using pals that aren't weak to electricity (avoid using water and flying). Ground type will do well here.
Tower 2: Free Pal Alliance. Lily and Lyleen. This tower is in the northern part of the main continent in a small snowy mountain region. You will need some cold resistance on your armor/accessories to get here. You can do this tower at level 25 and Lyleen is grass type so avoid using a water type. Fire type will do well here.
Tower 3: Eternal Pyre. Axel and Orzerk. This tower is located on the far west side of the map at the top of the giant volcano. You will need fire resistance on your armor/accessories to get here. You can take on this tower at level 40 so by this time you've already explored the entire inner continent hopefully where the first 2 towers reside and the green islands around them. Orzerk is an electric type so avoid using flying type here. Ice and Ground type moves will do well.
Oil Rig 1: The first oil rig is located in the water channel between the first 2 towers (just north of Penking and south of Warsect). The enemies on the rig vary from 40-45. The key to defeating these is killing all the enemies, disabling the turrets, and opening chests, with 1 big chest either being in the middle on a platform or in a shipping container at the end. This is the first method to farm oil. These rigs reset once per hour usually, although mods can speed that up.
Tower 4: PIDF. Marcus and Faleris. This tower is located on the far NE side of the map in the desert region. You will need max fire resist during daylight and near max cold resist at night time here. There's also a hub of vendors here called the Duneshelter located near the middle of this big desert island. You can do this tower at level 45 and by now you've explored the entire inner continent and volcano island. Faleris is a flying and fire type so ensure you use water type pals to fight it. Electric works ok too. Don't use grass or ice types here.
Tower 5: Genetic Research. Victor and Shadowbeak. This tower is located on the northern most island which is a giant snow covered mountain with a forest/city on the southern tip of it. You will need maximum cold resist to explore here. You can do this tower at level 50. By now you've explored the first 3 continents from the previous 4 towers and should have decent gear. Shadowbeak is a flying and dark type. Dragon pals do very well here. I highly recommend a Quivern, which by now if you captured a bunch of them, bred them, and used a pal condenser on them, should be super powerful.
Oil Rig 2: The second oil rig is located in the SE corner of the main map off the coast of Marsh Island and is level 55 content. This oil rig is much harder than the first one and rewards wise is roughly the same, with slightly higher level materials dropping, along with the oil. Overall this is the worst rig in my opinion in terms of rewards unless you have the mod that allows for gold chest drops from all chests.
Tower 6: Moonflower. Saya and Selyne. This tower is located in the NW corner of the main map West of the icy mountain and North of the volcano mountain. The enemies and pals here can be dangerous as it's a newer zone. However, there can be a few powerful pals you can capture. You can do this tower at level 55. Selyne is a dragon/normal type and a dragon type is best here. Don't be afraid to bring in your strongest pals and weapons with plenty of ammo. This fight is not difficult but can be if unprepared. I waited until level 60 to do it personally.
Tower 7: Feybreak. Bjorn and Bastigor. This tower is located on the newest island of Feybreak in the SW corner of the main map, just south of the giant volcano island. The island is very difficult to approach so beware. There are anti-air defenses throughout that you have to destroy and disable before you can fly. Take your flying mount from the volcano and once you hear anti-air locking on dismount and glide in. Ensure you take plenty of ammo, healing, and ground mount pals with you. This place can be tough at first. After disabling all anti-air defenses (and there are many) you can go to the southern tip of the island to find the tower. Bastigor is an ice type who can freeze and hit hard. You'll want powerful fire types to get through this fight. You and your pals need to be level 60 and should be using all the best gear and skills from palsteel.
Oil Rig 3: The third oil rig is in the SW corner of the map off the coast of Feybreak. It is extremely difficult. There are laser towers that constantly shoot you when you're mounted so approaching is similar to how you approached feybreak to begin with. If you really want to beat this easily then download the laser tower disabled mod. If you want to do it legitimately then you need to farm up the best pals, weapons, and armor from Hexolite before going in. My strategy was to land on the main deck with the cage around the golden chest. Take out the enemies in close proximity but you can ignore pretty much the entire rest of the rig. When you go to hack the chest an attack helicopter will come. I found my pals mostly useless during this fight. They either stand there confused or miss their attacks. The plasma cannon is by far the best weapon to take this down and you can use the cage in the middle to line of sight most of its attacks. I had zero issues doing the fight this way.
Best Base Locations: My top base locations are as follows....
Starter base in castle ruins behind starting point (254,-522).
Main Base Recommendation on Forgotten Island in upper left corner of the map south of moonflower. There's an elevated platform in the SW corner that is base size and pal raids usually cannot reach this base, making it safe. I try to sprint to this location after defeating the first 2 tower bosses to setup my main operations. I built my mining and farms outside and built a multi-story building in the middle with the first floor housing my pals, second floor used for crafting/production, and third floor used for breeding (-476, -84)
Coal/Sulfur Base Recommendations would be the southern edge of the volcano island. There's some elevated platforms that have plenty of coal and sulfur nodes. Just note these aren't as well protected so you will have to have your pals on alert and build some walls to fortify the position in case raids happen. However, there's pretty good choke points at 3 spots and there's oil located at some of these. (-604, -727) and (-657, -733) and (-726, -698).
Oil Base Recommendations are an interesting topic. A lot of people will choose moonflower because it has a few spots with 3 nodes which are clearly designed for bases. However, these are all very exposed and I don't like that personally. If you don't choose to use the oil near your coal/sulfur bases then there's 1 other spot that worked for me. There's a giant plateau south of duneshelter on the desert continent West of where tower 4 is. This spot has a bunch of trees, some coal, some rocks, and 2 oil spots. With a little work you can actually fit 2 pumps on each node, but it is difficult to pull this off and it'll be very power hungry. Note you'll need this base to be mostly electric pals generating electricity non-stop to keep the pumps working.
Hexolite Base Recommendation is another debated topic. Almost everyone chooses to make their base in the south feybreak (-1072, -1420) where 3 nodes are on top of each other and an oil node is near them. This is a tempting location but annoying to build in and it's annoying to defend. Instead I chose a beach and if you use the 2x base size mod, or the overlapping bases mod, OR carefully position 2 bases perfectly next to each other, you can have 3 hexolite nodes and 2 oil nodes, along with some other resources. This is located on an isolated beach on the western side of feybreak at (-1330, -1281).
There's plenty more to this game in-between with base building, capturing pals, taking out bounties, gathering pal fruits, gathering consumables, and crafting better gear. I could write so much more about all that but will leave it to you to figure out as you go through the game so we don't spoil it. I will do a break down of my favorite pals and weapons in another post.
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