How to catch Pals in Palworld

palworld leader holding pal sphere to catch pal
Credit: Pocket Pair Inc

palworld leader holding pal sphere to catch pal
Credit: Pocket Pair Inc

When you start out in Palworld you have nothing but your fists and a sense of adventure. You find yourself in a strange world surrounded by strange creatures and even the Chikipi will kill you if you're too careless. To protect yourself and start building a base, you need to know how to catch Palworld Pals.

Catching a Pal isn't straightforward due to the nature of Palworld as a survival adventure game. You'll have to go through a couple of hurdles and figure out the core loop of the game. Find out the steps you need to follow to set up your first Pal capture in Palworld.

After you're done here, be sure to learn advanced tricks to boost your capture chances and the best starter Pals.

How to catch Pals in Palworld

Catching Pals requires you to have Pal Spheres, devices that can contain and tame them. In this guide, we'll go over how to get Pal Spheres and how the capture mechanics work once you start catching Pals.

Craft Pal Spheres

You can't capture Pals without Pal Spheres. Initially, you're expected to craft your own Pal Spheres at a workbench. This requires the setup of a basic base before you can even capture your first Pal. So let's go over all the steps:

  • Build a Primitive Workbench by unlocking it from the Technology menu and gathering some wood by hitting trees or from the ground.
palworld unlock primitive workbench
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Credit: Pocket Pair Inc
  • Unlock the Pal Spheres recipe from the Technology menu.
  • Find Paldium Ore in your nearby surroundings. They're glowing blue rocks that you'll find by walking a bit ahead and will be quite hard to miss.
palworld farming paladium fragments
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Credit: Pocket Pair Inc
  • Extract Paldium Fragments using your fists or a pickaxe. You can also find these lying around on the floor.
  • Return to the workbench and craft your first Pal Sphere!
palworld craft pal sphere
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Credit: Pocket Pair Inc

You can also find Pal Spheres lying around in the forest if you look around. These come in quite handy when in a pinch or when you don't have a steady supply of Pal Spheres, so keep an eye out while exploring!

Attempt a capture

Once you've weakened the Pals you can press the Q key for PC to start aiming your Pal Sphere. If you miss your Pal Sphere will be wasted, so take careful aim.

palword aiming pal sphere to capture a chikipi
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Credit: Pocket Pair Inc

If you manage to make contact, a capture will be attempted. Before your throw you can see a percentage chance of capture, this is the first check. There will be three total capture checks before a successful capture, each with increasing odds. For example, if your initial capture chance was 45%, the next might be 75% followed by 99% for a successful capture. The lower the initial chance the harder it gets to get your hands on a new Pal.

palworld capturing a pal at a high percentage
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Credit: Pocket Pair Inc

If your capture is successful the Pal will be added to your team or sent to your Palbox.

Now that you know the basics of how to catch Pals, be sure to learn the basics of base building, such as how to build a bed and how to cook food.