I punched a tree. Then I made a bench. Then I beat a Pal to death with a homemade club for its wool, turned that wool into clothes, and somewhere in there I stopped noticing that I was learning a survival game.
That’s the trick. Survival games have been wildly popular for years, and I’ve bounced off every one I’ve tried. I dabble, I poke around to see what the fuss is about, and a few hours later I’m tangled up in one meagerly explained system after another until I’ve lost the thread of what I’m even supposed to be doing. Then I quietly stop playing.
Palworld 1.0 broke the streak.
The onboarding is the whole story
When 1.0 arrived to rave reviews, I figured the genre deserved one more shot from me. I’m glad I waited for this particular version, because word is the game had a much steeper learning curve when it first showed up.
New players now start with a series of missions built to walk you through the game’s numerous systems. Wood becomes a crafting bench. A club becomes wool (it’s a dog-eat-dog world out there). Wool becomes clothes. Then a camp, then a house, then a teleporter, and suddenly you’re pushing deeper into the world than you meant to go.
None of that sounds revolutionary written out. It isn’t. But the pacing of it is what kept me in the chair, and I’d never made it far enough into a survival game to feel that click before.
Then you’re gliding off cliffs
Before long you’re launching yourself off ledges Zelda-style, whomping on every Pal in sight to catch them in spheres and put them to work. Deploy them around camp. Ride them. Bring them along to scrap with the big roaming Pals and the towering bosses.
It’s a blast. And I want to be clear that there’s no way I’d have stuck around for any of it if the game hadn’t held my hand through the systems that make it run.
I’m still not strong enough to win
I have a long way to go. I wasn’t remotely powerful enough to take down the first boss solo, and I knew it.
What those early missions gave me instead was a handle on everything else I could be doing while I level up into something resembling a threat. There’s a vast world out there to keep exploring, Pals to catch, a base to build up. I’m having a blast doing it.
Where to get it
Palworld 1.0 is out on Steam, Xbox and PS5. It runs $29.99.
I’m going back in tonight to lose to that boss again.
