When it comes to creature capture games, there is this expectation that the captured creatures would and should evolve. And it’s no different here in Palworld. New players often ask if evolution is part of the game. In fairness to them, Penking looks like an evolved version of Pengullet.
The short answer is no. Evolution is not part of the current version of Palworld in Early Access. With that being said, there remains still the potential for change since the game is still in Early Access. At the moment, the current roadmap for Palworld involves introducing new Pals, PvP implementation, and the fully realized Tree of Life Island to explore. The devs make no mention of Evolution whatsoever as far as we know. But not even they could have expected Palworld’s meteoric rise in popularity.
From the looks of things, Pocketpair has decided to take things in a completely different direction. One that helps Palworld further stand out from other monster capture games.
Will Evolution be part of Palworld in the future?
It is unlikely that Evolution will ever be part of Palworld. In other games, the whole purpose of the Evolution feature is to give trainers a reason to hold on to and train lesser creatures in the hopes of evolving them into something more powerful. In Palworld, however, all the Pals serve a purpose. The smaller Pals, for instance, take up less real estate while working on a base. It also means that they won’t get stuck all the often. (Yes, I’m talking to you, Azurobe!)
The whole point of evolution is to give a massive bump in stats for a creature. But Palworld already has several systems that are designed to make Pals stronger. Players can offer souls to an Anubis statue to make their Pals stronger in certain categories. They can also offer the lives of many Pals of the same type using the Pal Condenser to increase the general stats of one Pal. Breeding Pals is also the go-to way to acquire a full complement of the best passive traits.
Understandably, some players don’t want to start over again from scratch. At the same time, players hop servers all the time and have to restart an equal number of times. If ARK Survival Evolved taught us anything, it’s that we should be ok with server wipes. Let’s see if that still holds up in Palworld.
What would Evolution look like in Palworld?
So, let’s just say that theoretically, Evolution becomes part of Palworld. What would that look like? There are several paths Pocketpair can take if they wish to go down this route.
First, they can go the tried and tested route of other capture games and just evolve the Pals when they reach a certain level. I would also say give trainers the ability to stop the process mid-evolution but that would cause even more problems for the company.
They can also go the route of items that trigger the evolution process. For example, you can give a Pengullet a pirate hat and it suddenly evolves into a Penking. I know the Paldeck says that they aren’t related but dex entries can change by the time the next generation of Pals are introduced.
The third way it can happen is by having a hit list of targets to knock out. It can either be a list of Pal bosses where your Pal has to be the active fighter for it to count. Or go knock out a couple of dozen Chikipis or something like that.
The player can always ask the Pal Geneticists guys to give them blueprints for a machine that can trigger the evolution process at any time after certain conditions are met. That indeed sounds like a Digimon thing, and it definitely is.
Do players even want Evolution to be in Palworld?
The player base seems to generally agree that they do not like the idea of Evolutions becoming a thing in Palworld. Many believe that it is unnecessary and would take away more from the pre-evolved Pals than anything else. Some players point to examples like Foxparks’ harness and Lifmunk’s SMG as reasons why Evolutions are not needed. One need only at the humble Pengullet bazooka and how it can, with the right setup, one-shot practically every boss in the game.
Again, Evolution is a way for pre-evolved creatures to have staying power for longer in the game. This also applies to Palworld to an extent after seeing how needed Pals with high work levels are in end-game item production. But if you are persistent enough, you can breed and condense a base Pal into a competent member of your camp at a fraction of the size, and possibly the efficiency.
Whether or not Evolution is in the cards in the future, it will diminish the fact that Palworld managed to reach great heights on its merits. A feat seldom accomplished by AAA game studios in this day and age save for Larian Studios. There’s no denying that a lot more can be done to improve the game, especially when it comes to base Pal’s A.I. Hopefully, we don’t have to wait long for the next big Palworld update.
