When it comes to effective Palworld gameplay, breeding is a major factor in the popular RPG's appeal. Once players hit level 19 and unlock the ability to build a Breeding Farm, a whole new facet of Palworld reveals itself, one wherein players can mix and match their various pals to create new, often otherwise elusive Pals.
Palworld’s vast open-world landscape is populated with different element Pals, each with different quirks and skill sets. Because of their unique abilities, developing the ability to strategically pair Pals in the Breeding Farm to optimize both the game’s survival and research management aspects and the power of Pal combatants, plays a crucial role in a player’s Palworld success. While at times it may feel like a grind, Pal breeding and Pal fusion between Pals is one of the most rewarding parts of playing Palworld, presenting a crowd-pleasing blend of in-game research, creativity, and nurturing of Pals that yields powerful, often surprising results.
With breeding and fusion, Palworld smuggles an entire, separate math puzzle game inside its already vast survival monster-catcher, trojan horse style. Understanding the ins and outs of the Breeding algorithm can be a little crunchy, especially for number-adverse players of Palworld, but thankfully there are player-made tools to help run that math, like a breeding calculator, making helpful calculators alongside guides like this one.
The gist of breeding lies in a hidden stat. Each Pal has a hidden stat that determines its rarity or strength, with the lower number indicating a more rare and powerful Pal. When given two potential parents in the Breeding Farm, the game will produce the Pal whose hidden stat number is the closest to the average number of that reproducing generation.
Palworld has been called the “Pokémon Killer,” but it may be at a type disadvantage.
Even though breeding unlocks along with the ability to make a Breeding Farm at level 19, players can set themselves — and their Pal Deck — up for success ahead of time. A major key to Palworld breeding is mixing and matching valuable traits and attributes, so players should spend lots of time in the lead-up to level 19 carefully catching Pals with level 2 or 3 work suitabilities and of all genders. It may take a bit for players to build up a good catalog of strong early-game Pals, but the investment is worth it.
Populating Pal rosters with well-versed Pals, both male and female, allows their offspring to inherit those skills. By filling up the Pal Deck and keeping the Pal Box full of Pals, players will have a fleet of potential parents waiting at the ready, ready to be paired with a complimentary Pal to create the ideal, potent offspring.
Another tactic players can employ before reaching level 19 is to batten down the hatches at their base, putting in prep time to set up their Palworld lair with the necessary breeding accommodations. Since Pals require one slice of cake per egg produced, having a base that can steadily export cake ingredients should be a priority for players.
To yield a cake, players will need a reliable source of milk, honey, berries, wheat flour, and eggs. With that in mind, players should aim to have a well-Pal-staffed Berry Plantation and Wheat Mill, a ranch filled with Mozzarina providing milk and Chikpis laying eggs, a swarm of Beegarde either at the player's ranch or their mercy (Beegarde can use their Worker Bee partner skill to produce honey at the ranch, but they also drop honey when defeated in combat). Being able to depend on having cratefuls of these resources before building a Breeding Farm will make breeding much less of a daunting task to implement into already populated Palworld gameplay.
Once in a blue moon, Palworld players will be fortunate enough to stumble upon rare and glistening Pal variants known as Lucky Pals. These sparkly variants are comparable to Shiny Pokémon, packing a little extra punch than their normal counterparts. Equipped with a whopping 15% boost in attack power and work efficiency, Palworld’s Lucky Pals pass on their stat increases to their next of kin, making them the crème de la crème for breeding in this open-world adventure.
Once snagged, Lucky Pals can be paired with a Pal of the opposite sex, the same as usual, with a visit to the Breeding Farm. Then, as they say, the magic happens. Populating a Breeding Farm with a Lucky parent will proliferate player parties, providing a supercharge to farms and combatants alike.
A Palworld player has faithfully recreated the world of Attack on Titan within the monster-catching survival game being dubbed “Pokémon with guns.”
Palworld's breeding mechanics are mainly useful for setting generations of Pals — and player bases — up for success by proliferating the necessary attributes. While there's definitely merit to experimenting at the Breeding Farm and being open to surprising offspring with random pairs, the best results are yielded with strategic oversight. A player should look at their base's and combatants' needs and determine which Passive Skills are most sorely needed among their Pals. Those needs should be a north star for how players approach breeding in Palworld.
When Pals reproduce, up to four skills are randomly selected and split between both parents to be passed down to their offspring Pal. This means that players will likely have to perform lots of trial and error at the Breeding Farm before yielding their optimal, ideal Pal.
Higher level players should always send Pals with the Legend skill to the Breeding Farm, particularly with non-legendary. The powerful skills and suitabilities of a Legendary parent is an easy hack to help an old favorite Pal who's been hanging around the party forever get a significant power upgrade of +20% to attack and defense, as well as a 15% speed boost.
Before players try to breed Legendary Pals, they should think twice. Except for Frostallion Noct (more on them later), all Legendary Pals can only be obtained in the wild and are impossible to breed unless two of the opposite sex are already tamed. With that being said, once players do, in fact, have two Pals of the opposite sex, they should have them reproduce, which will provide an unprecedented increase to base productivity.
If players are planning to reproduce multiples of the same Pal, be prepared to study up on Pal gender ratios before choosing to breed instead of catching those Pals. Since the creatures of Palworld adhere to the gender binary when it comes to having chemistry in the Breeding Farm, pairing some pals may be more difficult than others due to a lack of one gender's population.
For example, players taking the advice of prepping their bases and ranches for the Breeding Farm will be looking to have dozens of Mozzarina. They should focus on catching those Mozzarina, at least to start, because Mozzarina has a 20/80 male-to-female ratio. Those odds make it close to impossible to find each gender to pair as Palworld deems appropriate. The good news is, once one of each gender is procured, breeding yields male and female Pals at an even 50/50, making for much better odds.
Palworld’s edgy spin on the Pokémon formula has taken the gaming world by storm, so here are some tips to help new players set off on their adventure.
It’s important for any player scouring the web for tips and tricks for Palworld breeding to know that breeding presents their only chance to get a Frostallion Noct to their name. Arguably the rarest Pal that Palworld has to offer, adding the Frostallion Noct to the Pal Deck is no walk in the park. Players need to go to frosty depths, up to the northernmost corners of Palworld’s large open-world map, and visit the Land of Absolute Zero in order to even encounter the original Frostallion variant. Harnessing Frostallion in a Pal Sphere demands serious strategy and gear to armor up against both Frostallion’s icy attacks and the harsh, cold weather conditions
Once caught, players can play matchmaker between the Frostallion and the Hezephyr. While Hezephyr’s no slouch and elusive in their own right, only catchable at night, they are a far easier challenge than Frostallion, and likely already caught or, at the very least, located by the time players meet Frostallion at around level 50. Soon after, a gorgeously rendered black and purple egg will yield the game’s crown jewel Pal, Frostallion Noct.
In addition to Lucky and Legend, there are many other powerful passive skills worth throwing into the mix at the Breeding Farm. If mindfully applied and if carefully looked out for in wild Pals, these passive skills can be key ingredients towards exponentially increasing Pal Power.
Players looking to add some powerful combat-focused genetics to their Palworld melting pot should keep an eye out for Pals either in the wild or in their possession that have the Musclehead (+30% to attack, but a -50% to work speed, so keep Muscleheads off the farm), Ferocious (+20% to attack) and Burly (+20% defense) passive skills. Despite only being categorized as tier two skills, their collective boosts are significant. With enough trial and error, with these passive skills in the mix, players can create the perfect soldier. Also of note are element-specific passive skills, which are recognizable by their Emperor or Lord titles (i.e. Flame Emperor or Lord of Lighting).
Alongside intimidating tower battles and combat encounters, maintaining a streamlined and functional base is one of Palworld's greatest challenges. Incorporating the proper passive skills while picking parent Pals to partner at the Breeding Farm is a crucial aspect of player success.
For players looking for a workaholic on their base, what better than a pal with the Workaholic passive skill? A great example of the cheeky sense of humor that sets Palworld apart, Workaholic is a tier three skill that makes Pal sanity drop at a rate 15% slower than usual, so players can work Pals to the bone. The most powerful boost for worker Pals, though, is easily the Artisan skill, which provides Pals with an unprecedented +50% to work speed. Once players have a Pal with Artisan, it would behoove them to whip up countless cakes and prepare for a long run of cross-breeding that Pal with others so as to proliferate the coveted skill throughout their base.
Fight, farm, build and work alongside mysterious creatures called "Pals" in this completely new multiplayer, open world survival and crafting game!