Catch Your First Pal and Stay Alive
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Catch one manageable wild Pal while keeping enough food and room to retreat. In Palworld, you weaken wild Pals and then capture them with Spheres; captured Pals become allies and can work at a base (official game page).
Build a bench and make your tools
Follow the opening missions and gather loose Wood and Stone along the way. Check Primitive Workbench in Technology and unlock it if needed. Gather 2 Wood, open the Build menu, place the bench, and finish construction using the displayed prompt. Open its recipe menu to make a Stone Pickaxe and a Wooden Club: select a recipe, supply its listed materials, finish the work with the displayed prompt, and collect the item. The bench also makes basic Pal Spheres (Primitive Workbench).
Craft your first Spheres
Unlock the Pal Sphere through Technology, then gather glowing pale blue Paldium near water and craft Spheres at the workbench (Catching a Pal). Use your new pickaxe on a glowing blue deposit. A basic Pal Sphere costs one Paldium Fragment (release notes). Open the recipe menu, select the basic Pal Sphere recipe, choose a quantity, start production, finish the work, and collect the completed Spheres.
Aim, weaken and capture
On default Steam keyboard and mouse controls, hold Q to aim, then release Q to throw the selected Sphere. Right-click cancels a bad line, and 2 cycles the sphere type (controls guide). Keep your sphere inventory and selected type visible before starting a fight. Note that summoning a party Pal with E is separate from capturing with Q.
Start with small, weaker Pals. Lower wild Pal Health increases capture chance (Catching a Pal). Choose an isolated low-level Pal, leave yourself room to retreat, and deal damage a little at a time, stopping before its health empties. If a capture fails, treat it as a reason to reassess that enemy and your remaining stock instead of emptying every Sphere automatically.
Keep food and warmth covered
Before extending a trip, check your health, hunger, and cold status. Forage Red Berries, then select the food in your inventory and use it with right-click to restore hunger (Food). Campfires, clothes, and torches help avoid cold at night (controls guide). If the cold warning appears, head back toward a heat source. Eating solves hunger; it does not replace cold protection.
When the first attempt goes wrong
No throw: check the selected sphere type and your inventory. Cannot craft: confirm the technology, station, and materials, then complete and collect the queued item. Target dying: reduce follow-up attacks.
Once you have a Pal, return to your workbench area before choosing another fight. Give the catch a job by building a first base and putting Pals to work, then check food, sanity, and base care.