The best starter Pals in Palworld and where to get them

Looking for the best starter Pals in Palworld? Palworld is a creature capture game where you collect 'Pals', colourful creatures with different elemental abilities in a similar fashion to Pokemon. Pals can either help you in combat to secure new, rarer Pals, or can work at your base farming, mining and gathering materials.

As such, collecting the most efficient Pals early on in your playthrough is an important step to establish your base. For optimal production and the best starting combat, utility and mount Pals, see our full list below. We'll also tell you how to catch them, how best to utilise their skills and where you can find them.

Palworld | Early Access Launch Trailer | Pocketpair

Best Pals to collect first in Palworld

Below we'll take you through each Pal you're likely to first encounter in Palworld and go through their main abilities, where they should be assigned and the main pros and cons of each breed. With this, you should have a clear idea of where to prioritise your time and efforts.

Like Pokemon, each Pal has a different elemental affinity which makes them both stronger and more vulnerable to specific elements. Each Pal also has different skills that make them able to work in different structures on your base. These are also listed so you know which are the best for farming, mining and so forth.

Chikipi

• Element: Neutral
• Skill Proficiencies: Gathering, Farming
• Partner Skill: Egg Layer (will lay Eggs when assigned to a ranch)
• Drops: Egg, Chikipi Poultry
• Location: All over the map but particularly within the Windswept Hills

The Chikipi is an adorable chicken creature that you'll encounter straight away. If you fight the Chikipi they will drop Eggs and Poultry which you can eat. As with most games, you'll recover more hunger if you cook the food at a campfire first.

These cute companions can be set to work on ranch buildings or berry farms, making them an obtainable working force for those early needs. If you get a few on a ranch at once, they will produce a large amount of eggs. I've found that the fastest way to level up the Pals in my team (at least for the first few levels) is to cook eggs at a campfire or craft arrows in succession. The process of crafting or cooking will rack up a nice amount of XP.

Of course, you'll quickly outgrow the need for Chikipi and will soon find better Pals (listed further down), but to begin with they are a useful food and labour source.

Foxparks

• Element: Fire
• Skill Proficiencies: Kindling
• Partner Skill: Huggy Fire (transforms into a flamethrower)
• Drops: Leather, Flame Organ
• Location: Grassy Behemoth Hills

The Foxparks is an excellent starting Pal for combat and will offer consistent damage. Even more so, when you use the Partner Skill Huggy Fire, the Pal will leap into your arms and emit waves of fire like a flamethrower. To get the skill, you must first reach level 6 and craft a Foxparks Harness. This is achievable by playing through the tutorial prompts and hunting other Foxparks for their Flame Organs (a necessary crafting component).

Tanzee

• Element: Grass
• Skill Proficiencies: Planting, Gathering, Handiwork, Lumbering, Transporting
• Partner Skill: Cheery Rifle (will use an assault rifle against enemies)
• Drops: Mushroom
• Location: Grassy Behemoth Hills

The Tanzee is worth picking up early on due to its sheer amount of skills. The Tanzee can assign itself to most early game buildings like the Logging Site and Berry Plantation. Also, it will often chop down trees when left unassigned, leaving you with a nice buildup of wood after coming back from exploring.

Additionally, when you reach level 12, you can unlock the Tanzee's Assualt Rifle and associated Partner Skill. With this, the Tanzee essentially guns down enemies in quick succession with a lovely dose of firepower. This makes the Tanzee suited for both utility and combat.

Rushoar

• Element: Ground
• Skill Proficiencies: Mining
• Partner Skill: Hard Head (increased efficiency of destroying boulders when mounted)
• Drops: Rushoar Prok, Leather, Bone
• Location: West of the Small Settlement

The Rushoar is a ridable Pal that can be used to travel easier. Additionally, you can do a rush attack when on the back of a Rushoar if you want to take any enemies or Pals by surprise. Whilst there are faster mounts out there, the Rushoar is fairly obtainable early on and you only need to reach level 6 to unlock the Rushoar Saddle.

Jolthog

• Element: Electric
• Skill Proficiencies: Generating Electricity
• Partner Skill: Jolt Bomb (transforms the Jolthog into a throwable weapon)
• Drops: Electric Organ
• Location: Ravine Entrance surrounding area.

Not only is the Jolthog an adorable Pal, but it is highly effective in combat. This is especially true if you unlock its Partner Skill at level 8 which essentially turns the Jolthog into an electric bomb you can throw at other Pals for high impact damage. This ability alone makes the Jolthog worth pursuing in the early-game regions.

Daedream

• Element: Dark
• Skill Proficiencies: Handiwork, Gathering, Transporting
• Partner Skill: Dream Chaser (stays near player when assigned to the team)
• Drops: Venom Gland, Small Pal Soul
• Location: Grassy Behemoth Hills (at night)

The Daedream is a Pal I used exclusively in combat early on due to the immensely useful Dream Chaser skill, unlocked at level 8. Once you make the Daedream's necklace, it essentially allows the Daedream to stay near you at all times without needing to be summoned. In essence, you can have two Pals involved in combat at once. You just need to make sure you have the Daedream allotted in one of your team slots.

To get a Daedream you must hunt for them at night, so make sure you have a torch equipped or have clothing equipped to avoid freezing from cold.

How to assign Pals to jobs in Palworld

Although the maximum limit of Pals in your base is huge (as of writing there are 480 Pal slots per Palbox), you will only be able to have a limited number of them working on your base at once. To unlock more workers you must level up your base. This is a separate system from the player level and can be achieved by fulfilling missions at a Palbox.

Once you have a slot available, it will appear under the main Palbox inventory (featuring all of the Pals inside of the box). Simply click on the Pal you want to place on your base and drag it over to the 'Pals at the base' section.

Pals will automatically gravitate to tasks they are skilled for. If you wish to manually set a Pal a task, however, you can do so by approaching them and then clicking the prompt to lift them. Once you have them in your arms, launch them towards the area where the task is located and they will get to work.

That rounds off our guide to the best starting Pals in Palworld including options for gardening, mining, combat and more. With this, you should be kitted out with everything you need to explore the wider Palworld map and take on some rarer Pals.