The player goes hunting for Pals in the water in Palworld.

More Palworld Guides

Palworld is an action game, but it's also at least part RPG - and with RPGs comes the fine art of leveling up. As you accumulate experience your character will become more powerful, and you'll need to decide how they become more powerful. This can be a daunting task if you haven't been playing the game for long.

This guide will teach you how to level up in Palworld. We'll also provide some suggestions on how to spend the Stat Points you'll earn which each new Player Level. Don't worry, you won't ruin your character by choosing poorly! Every stat is useful!

The player prepares to stop a Raid in Palworld.

How to Level Up

In order to level up your character you first need to accumulate a certain amount of experience points. Enter your Inventory (center button on controller / Tab on keyboards) and check the top-right corner of the screen. You'll see your Player Level up here, along with your HP and Hunger level. The number at the end of the blue bar indicates how much experience you need to accumulate before you gain a level.

There are many ways to gain experience in Palworld. Here are just a few ways:
  • Craft items / structures
  • Work at work stations
  • Harvest items from natural structures, such as trees or rock piles
  • Defeat Pals
  • Catch Pals
Most of your everyday activities in Palworld contribute to your experience total, and the more you do, the faster you'll level. You can also earn levels earlier in the game by completing Tutorial missions, in the top-right corner of the main screen.

Once you level up your character you'll receive a notification that you have unused Stat Points, at the bottom of the screen. This brings us to the next part of leveling up: Distributing your Stat Point.

The player decides which stats to level in Palworld.

Stat Points

Whenever you gain a level you'll receive one Stat Point. You can then allocate the stat point to one of your six stats. (Well, five of the six. We'll discuss the exception below.) Your stats are as follows:
  • Health - Your overall health. Improve your Health stat raises your HP, allowing you to survive more hits from hostile PALs, enemy combatants, and other hazards. You'll receive 100 HP for leveling your Health.
  • Stamina - Your capacity for work. Whenever you swing a tool, attack an enemy, run, climb, or glide, you eat away at your Stamina bar. Improving your Stamina allows you to perform arduous tasks for a longer time. You'll receive 10 Stamina for leveling your Stamina.
  • Attack - Your capacity for dealing damage. The higher your Attack stat, the more pain you'll inflict on enemies with your attacks. You'll receive 2 Attack for leveling your Attack.
  • Defense - Your capacity for taking - and deadening - damage. As of now you can't level your Defense stat, and can only raise it by wearing better equipment.
  • Work Speed - The speed at which you can perform tasks. Raising your Work Speed will allow you to craft items more quickly, or set up structures. You'll receive 50 Work Speed for leveling your Work Speed.
  • Weight - Your carrying capacity. Whenever you add an item to your inventory it weighs your character down, and if your combined items weight more than your Weight you'll move more slowly, to the point that you won't be able to jump. Raising your Weight allows you to carry more. You'll receive 50 Weight for leveling your Weight.
The player inspects their Ranch ini Palworld.

All that begs the question: Which stat should you raise? That depends on how you play the game. If you're only interested in building nice bases, you'd want to prioritize Weight, Stamina, or Work Speed. If you want to turn into a leaner, meaner combatant, you'd want Health, Attack, and Stamina. You can still play through the game regardless of how you distribute your stats - you may just have a harder time completing certain tasks.

For what it's worth, here's a recommended order from us:
  • Stamina is usually the most important for everyday tasks. You can do more before needing to take a break, and Stamina will allow you to escape problem situations more easily. You should pump points into Stamina every two or three levels, until you feel comfortable with your character's overall performance.
  • Weight comes in handy unless you never leave your base, which isn't likely to happen. Getting your weight up to 600 or 700 at a minimum will make your life much easier.
  • Health comes in third, though this depends on your difficulty level. If you're playing on Easy or Normal you probably won't get knocked out unless you stumble on enemies that are vastly more powerful than your character, and even on harder difficulty levels careful deployment of your Pals can compensate for poor Health. Still, you should tr y to level this up at least a few times.
  • Attack is fourth, but this also depends on how much you want to rely on your Pals. If you want to be the primary attacker then you should pump up your Attack stat. If you plan on deploying Pals (which is recommended), you'll find them doing far more damage than you anyway.
  • Work Speed is last. Yes, it's nice to get through tasks more quickly, but all you're losing is a bit of time - and if you set up a thriving base, your Pals will do most of the grunt work anyway.
It is difficult to completely hobble a character with poor stat choices, so play the game and make your decisions based on what you find works best. Happy hunting!