Palworld’s breeding system is my friend group’s new obsession

A player can find tons of cute or capable Pals on a tour through Palworld’s Palpagos Islands, but in order to fill out their Paldeck, they’ll need to dabble with breeding. Breeding is a surprisingly deep part of Palworld, and it’s quickly become a rabbit hole — or a Caprity hole, if you will — for my group on our shared server.

Once I got past the original hook of “What if survival game, but Pokémon?” in Palworld, I was surprised to find that I was still engaged. I’m on a server with my friends, and we all handle different roles. I pump up my carry weight and bring Pals who could help haul, and I’m constantly loading up with tons of ore to smelt into valuable ingots. My buddies Jake and Matt pitch in, too; Jake is a forward scout, whereas Matt runs what we politely call “Pal Resources.”

Pal Resources is the name for our breeding camp. Now that we have the ability to build ranches and bake delicious cakes, Matt is off to the races. It’s entirely possible to just casually dabble in breeding, but we are now entirely engrossed by the process. There are three main reasons to breed. The first is that by combining two seemingly unrelated Pals, a third Pal can be born. If you want to fill out your Paldeck and be a proper collector, breeding is essentially mandatory.

But while creating new Pals was a fun trick, what really snagged us was perfecting our existing roster. For instance, the Relaxaurus is an adorable dope of a dinosaur — but with the power of Pal Resources, we were able to create an electric variant who keeps our infrastructure running. Breeding can create new elemental types of existing Pals.

Image: Pocketpair

Sometimes, this offers utility. Sometimes, it’s just nice to have a little bit of variety in my life. Why roll around with one bouncy, cuddly Kingpaca like an absolute fool when I can have two Kingpacas, one of which is an Ice type?

Matt also discovered that you can breed two of the same Pals together, and their traits will pass down to their offspring. This is the third, and arguably the most potent, reason to get into breeding. Sometimes, the process doesn’t work out — nobody needs a pyromaniac Pal running around endangering the whole base. But if you have a diet-loving, burly-bodied workaholic Pal — boy howdy, you don’t even need to get on the platform and cruelly command your Pals to get to work.

Our bases are now staffed by a set of Pals, all several generations deep into breeding, who tend to our every need. Have a large work order to complete? Don’t even bother; Anubis will run over and finish that for you in seconds. Hungry? Why not go into the fridge, chilled by a tiny hedgehog, and grab yourself 500 omelets? Such a bounty is nothing to us.

Pal breeding reminds me of the Chao Gardens from Sonic Adventure 2, which served as a place to bring and hatch eggs, and then raise the ensuing Chao. What is meant to be a side thing has now become a full game in and of itself, where we dutifully bake cakes and cart massive eggs to and fro, all in the service of building our empire on the Palpagos Islands. As for the Pals that don’t make the cut — don’t worry about it. We’ve found a big, open field where they can run, and play, and definitely don’t get put into the Goodbye Tube to get turned into meat sluice to strengthen our A-team. That simply doesn’t happen! It’s fine.