Well hello there my AAA gamers and welcome to another AAA Thursday. This week we're doing something weird on our AAA Thursday. We're covering an... Indie title! But don't worry, this indie title is not some poorly pixeled dungeon crawler. No no this week we cover Palworld. A multiplayer open world pokemon-like shooter game from the indie developer Pocketpair. I was hesitant to cover an Indie title here, but this game is amazing and has a huge update that just dropped December 23rd (it also sold 8m copies in 5.5 days so kind of not indie anymore). So without further ado lets dive into the mysterious, beautiful world that is, the Palpagos Islands.
Regardless if you're a fan of open world exploration, catching/raising creatures, base building, crafting/resource allocation, survival mechanics, faction/boss fights, increasing character abilities or just anything playing with friends Palworld may be the game for you. There is simply a myriad of things to do in this game. The entertainment value is through the roof and could keep you busy for months on end. But the question here is, with so much to do... what is the objective.
***Minor Spoilers - Story Arc***
Catching and raising adorable monsters of course! Okay not really, that's actually more of a side thing, like managing equipment. There is actually a rather entertaining and alluring story arc to the game. Essentially you're a castaway who crash-lands on a mysterious island full of creatures called Pals. From here you utilize survival abilities to uncover the islands most profound secrets. The end goal is to uncover the reason behind the islands isolation as well as the odd nature of the Pals. During this process you will be faced with powerful enemies and ethical dilemmas about the exploitation of these Pals verse the advancement of society.
The world is made up of a series of islands called the Palpagos Islands. It's roughly 16 square kilometers in size, which isn't giant but by no means small. It's comparable to games like Metal Gear Solid 5 or State of Decay. On top of that Palworld offers both ground and flying mounts, which make the world seem even smaller. So the world itself is not huge, but don't let that discourage you. There are over 100 dungeons to discover in Palworld all containing rare Pals and extremely valuable resources. If that's not enough excitement, each dungeon has different difficulty levels and some are limited time dungeons! This makes preparing before delving a dungeon even more crucial!
So now lets get to the reason we're all here, capturing and raising those adorably vicious Pals. First you need to craft some Pal Spheres. You do this by building a primitive workbench, reaching level two and then unlocking the Pal Sphere tech in the technology tree menu. Once you got a weapon of some sort, bow and arrow being easiest and some pal spheres you're ready to set out. Just damage the Pals until they're low, you don't want to knock them out, just get them low and remember if you're using a bow the longer you pull back the more damage you do. Once you get them low pull out your Pal Sphere you'll see a number in the top right corner of the display. That represents the percent of chance you have of obtaining the Pal.
Now that you got your hands on your Pals its time to raise them. I don't like to maintain a giant menagerie of monsters. I mean who do I think I am? Pablo Escobar? But one could if they wished to as they allow 15 Pals to work a base at any given time (can be adjusted to 20 but world/server loads get bad)! You can raise your Pals in two primary ways. The best, in my opinion is by taking them with you on your journey. Pals gain the most experience points when fighting along side you. Next, if perhaps you did go the menagerie route you could always set your Pals to tasking around your base. They can manage all sorts of things in your absence, this grants them small amounts of experience points. Just make sure you keep all your Pals fed so they can maintain their sanity. Abused Pals lose their sanity over time causing them to slack off and if left unattended long enough gain a Depression debuff.
Alright lets talk about the building this game offers. There is a dedicated build mode and this is the only way to do construction in Palworld. Enter using designated button (typically B on PC), then select from the limited list they offer; wall, floor, window ect... Bearing in mind the limitation of the building materials they offer, the only other limitation is your imagination. In fact, Palworld even offers a way to turn off building deterioration affects. While only buildings outside your base deteriorate, turning this affect off makes building the entire world far more rewarding.
Now one may be wondering how to get materials for all this building. Remember the menagerie we spoke about earlier? Here is where it will come into play. Pals can be used to gather resources while other task that require active attention are being tended to. Of course breaking down stones yourself is always an option, but probably not the best spend of time. Certain structures like a Stone Pit can also help you consistently gather stones with the aid of Pals. But remember when using different building materials that some have less than admirable qualities. Wood for example is prone to burning down. One rogue flame could set an entire base ablaze (of course entering build mode and disassembling the item can stop the spread).
Palworld is an endlessly entertain title with quality gameplay and a clean easy to use UI. This is more then most games have offered throughout all of 2024 so I'd highly recommend giving it a try. And with the recent December update the game has gotten even more content to keep you busy! Check out Palworld on PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X and Series S, Mac OS and Microsoft Windows available on steam. For the low price of just $29.99 this game is virtually a steal!
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