What Palworld is
Palworld is an open world survival and crafting game where you live alongside creatures called Pals. You explore a large world, gather food and materials, build shelters and production chains, and put Pals to work. Some Pals fight alongside you, others plant seeds, water crops, harvest, mine ore, make fire or generate electricity. The store text is blunt about the darker side of it too: you can sell Pals, eat them when food runs out, and sacrifice one in a dungeon if that saves you.
Exploration is a big part of the loop. Pals can be mounted to cross land, sea and sky, so you are not limited to walking. Dungeons exist as the dangerous end of the spectrum, and wildlife sanctuaries hold endangered Pals that you can sneak in and capture for money. Breeding lets a Pal inherit characteristics from its parents, and combining rare Pals is the path to stronger ones.
Playing with friends
Multiplayer is built in. In online co-op, up to 4 players can play together, and a dedicated server supports up to 32 players. You can invite a friend and explore, build and survive as a group, and you can also battle other players and trade Pals with them. Cross-platform multiplayer is supported, so a group spread across different setups can still end up in the same world.
Building scales well with a group. The game's own advice for big projects is to put an army of Pals on the job, and a shared base with several people running farms, factories and resource gathering gets things moving much faster than playing alone.
Before you start
Expect a survival game with real pressure: food is scarce and poachers roam, so the early stretch is about establishing a steady supply of food, shelter and basic production before anything ambitious. Decide as a group how you want to treat Pals, because the game lets you play it either way — a cooperative farmstead, or a harsh operation where Pals work until they die and get eaten when needed.
Plan your base with automation in mind. Pals work factories and farms as long as they are fed, which makes feeding routes and storage placement worth sorting early. Controller support is full, including DualShock and DualSense controllers, saves sync through Steam Cloud, and Steam Workshop and achievements are available alongside the Steam Trading Cards.