Farming XP early in Palworld is essential. Your Pals’ levels can’t exceed your own, so staying at a low level for too long hinders your entire party. And you get a handful of Technology Points when you level up, which you need to unlock new structures for your base and items that augment your Pals’ capabilities. Throwing yourself into raids or battling high-level enemies isn’t the way to go, though.
In this guide, we’ll explain the best way to farm XP in Palworld and break down how it works.
Best way to farm XP in Palworld
Palworld has a bonus system that rewards you for catching a set number of the same Pal. In the game’s early access version, that number was quite high, around 12 for each species. For Palworld’s 1.0 release, developer Pocketpair dropped that threshold to five, and while you’ll find some that occasionally require more catches before you max out the bonus, it’s never as high as 12. The threshold might be lower, but with more Pals on each island, it works out giving you a lot more XP.
Every catch until you hit that threshold rewards you with a sizable amount of XP points. The way Palworld’s early leveling system works means that for the first several regions, you can comfortably stay at the same level as other enemies or a few levels higher just by catching duplicates of every new Pal you come across. In the very early game, you’re limited by how many Pal Spheres you can catch, though the amount of XP you get from each catch should be more than enough to bump your level up while you set up a reliable flow of Paldium for crafting more spheres.
You can see how many XP points you get and what the catch limit for that Pal’s bonus is in a little pop-up window on the right side of the screen. It might get overshadowed by other messages when you first make the catch, but once those cycle through, the XP bonus window will pop up. After you catch five (or whatever the number for that Pal is), you’ll also get a Minimog Effigy. Turn these in at a Statue of Power to increase your character’s movement speed.
That’s it for our guide on farming XP in Palworld. Check out our comprehensive Palworld breeding combos guide for a primer on getting the best Pals possible, and head over to our guide on the best starter Pals and the best Pals in Palworld to see which ones you should be spending your time and attention on.