Highlights

  • Palworld could improve base building and monster capturing with terraforming mechanics in the future.
  • With terraforming options, players could manipulate terrain using new Pal abilities for more creative bases.
  • Integration of terraforming in Palworld could set it apart and add more depth ahead of a full release state.

Entering Early Access on Steam and Xbox Game Pass in January 2024, Palworld's open-world survival-crafting with creature-collecting genre mashup swiftly became a gaming sensation, setting sales and player count records in its opening weeks, and currently still boasting impressive numbers of players and attention. Pocketpair's smash hit has also seen its share of controversial aspects, but Palworld and its community still thrive at the moment.

As Palworld is still in its early access period, there is naturally a laundry list of features, fixes, and improvements that the studio has laid out plans for further improving and iterating on many of its foundational mechanics and designs. And while the conversation about Palworld's comparison to Pokemon and other adjacent titles in its genre(s) is lively and ongoing, Palworld itself remains on a general popular trajectory, with the studio diligently working on increasing support. Among the various potential updates in the works for Palworld, one that might integrate particularly well in regard to both the base building and monster capturing gameplay loops would be to incorporate terraforming mechanics/options.

Palworld has been steadily receiving updates and will continue to see them throughout the course of the year.

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Palworld Needs One Obvious Missing Feature to Level Up its Open World

Palworld has a lot going for it even in its current early access state, but there's one aspect it could add to make its world more reactive.

Palworld Could Greatly Improve Base Building and Pals With Terraforming Mechanics

Palworld is Already Primed for Terraforming Functionality

As crafting and designing elaborate bases is an integral ingredient in the genres that Palworld pulls from, handing players the ability to sculpt the land at will via a terraforming component would smoothly integrate with the existing robust base options. With the menagerie of Pals also all being adept at certain tasks in conjunction with their related elemental affinities and abilities, it would be an excellent evolution to introduce terraforming-capable ones into the mix. This could also lend itself to expanding the Pal's overall utility and creating more synergies between types and breeding choices for optimal trait combinations, while opening up a much greater degree of creative expressions for players in Palworld's base building via manipulating its various region's topography.

How Terraforming in Palworld Could Work

To start with, Palworld could expand its initial base options and features, giving fans the freedom to alter their starting setup's landscape or its immediate surrounding territory, at least to a degree, as a sort of teaser for what could be achieved with more elaborate later-game possibilities. A tech tree dedicated to unlocking more complex workstations at milestone levels that, of course, require rarer materials and prerequisite structures would probably go along with this. It could then work in tandem with Pals' expertise to allow for greater swathes of land to be altered in increasingly drastic ways. For example, earth-based pals might shape large sections of rocky terrain, whereas water/ice elemental pals could create or alter bodies of water.

Adding more unique higher-level/boss Pals that possess the terraforming trait, (or possibly a set chance for certain kinds to manifest it) would serve to widen the range of Pal personalities and functionalities, while adding to the total roster, which is one of the bigger focuses of Palworld's updates. This subsequently provides greater incentive for players to seek them out and recruit them into their existing repertoire.

Other methods to improve Palworld's base and related systems will likely emerge from the experimentation and fantastic layouts that fans will surely display if given the tools to run wild via being able to terraform parts of Palworld's map. By​ implementing the feature, the sky would almost literally be the limit for extending the range of Palword's environmental versatility. It could thus serve as a seamless transition to the next phase of Palworld's progress toward full release state, and set it apart again through innovative use of a creative and fun toolset.