10 Best Early-Game Pals in Palworld 1.0 — And Where to Find Them
TL;DR: in early Palworld, workers beat fighters. Catch Pals that cover handiwork, mining, transporting and watering first, and your base produces materials while you explore. The one Pal to prioritize above all: Penking — a level 15 boss you can farm early for both combat and labor.
▶ The video shows every spawn location on the map (Japanese audio, timestamps in the description)
Why "working Pals" first?
The biggest early-game bottleneck in Palworld is materials, and the game is designed so that Pals stationed at your base do the gathering for you. The ten Pals below can all be caught in the starting regions, and together they cover every base job that matters in the first ten hours. (Japanese names are shown for cross-reference, since the video is in Japanese.)
The 10 Pals worth catching early
| # | Pal | Main role | Why it matters (video timestamp) |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Cattiva（ツッパニャン） | All-rounder | Your first utility Pal — grab one immediately (0:50) |
| 2 | Lifmunk（クルリス） | Multi-suitability | Covers several work types, plugs any gap in your base (1:16) |
| 3 | Fuack / Croajiro（カモノスケ／ブシガエル） | Watering | Essential for automating your berry farm (1:45) |
| 4 | Depresso（ンダコアラ） | Handiwork / mining / transporting | Nocturnal — keeps the base running at night (2:30) |
| 5 | Pengullet → Penking（ペンタマ→キャプペン） | Combat + labor | A level 15 boss you can farm repeatedly. The pick of the list (2:50) |
| 6 | Tanzee（エテッパ） | Handiwork / medicine | Rare early access to medicine production (4:31) |
| 7 | Foxparks（キツネビ） | Kindling | Your first fire Pal — smelting and cooking come online (5:05) |
| 8 | Eikthyrdeer（ツノガミ） | Lumbering Lv2 | Fully automates your wood supply (5:34) |
| 9 | Nox（ニャンバット） | Transporting / mining / gathering | Outstanding night-shift worker (5:59) |
| 10 | Bristla（イバラヒメ） | Level 20–30 bridge | Your sign that the early game is over (6:39) |
Think in shifts: day crew and night crew
Depresso and Nox are nocturnal: they work while your other Pals sleep. Pair them with a day crew (Cattiva, Lifmunk, Foxparks) and your base runs around the clock — you log in to a stockpile instead of an empty chest.
Priority #1: farm Penking
Don't wait for Pengullet to grow into something useful — go straight for Penking, the level 15 boss. It's outrageously strong for the early game, works at your base, and because you can catch it repeatedly, it stacks perfectly with the catch-everything leveling strategy from our beginner's guide: capture XP and a top-tier Pal at the same time.
FAQ
If I can only chase one Pal on this list, which one?
Penking. A level 15 boss you can farm early, strong in combat and useful at the base. Until you can take it on, Cattiva is your all-purpose starter.
What's special about nocturnal Pals?
They work through the night while the rest of your team sleeps. A day/night rotation roughly doubles your base's output in real terms.
Where do I find each Pal?
The video shows each spawn point on the map. All ten are within reach of the starting regions.