Monster tamer and open-world survival crafting game Palworld became a phenomenon when it released in early access in 2024. It introduced us to a world populated by creatures called Pals and has amassed more than 35 million players around the world. Now it’s releasing a new card game from Bushiroad on July 30, and its first Booster Pack, Dawn of Palpagos, has sold more than 3.5 million packs worldwide. Palworld seems primed to take the world by storm again, so we thought we’d get you up to speed on the card game as we build up to release.
It’s for two players, and you need to use a combination of Pals, gear, events, and structures to take down your opponent. To get started, you just need a main deck of 50 cards and a soul deck of 10 cards. There really isn’t much setup, you just shuffle your two decks, place them on the table, and begin. So it’s very easy to pick up and play at any time.
You rest soul cards in order to play your other cards, with Pals being your main characters. Pal cards feature new artwork that faithfully re-creates fan-favorite creatures, and they display numerical values that determine their soul card cost, their power when attacking Pals or structures, and their strike damage if they directly attack the opposing player. Gear cards power up your Pals or deal damage to opposing Pals, event cards have powerful effects that can only be used once, and structure cards allow you to assign Pals to them to activate unique abilities.
You draw two soul cards each round, meaning your options in early rounds might be fairly limited depending on what opening hand you drew. With each round, you’ll draw a new card from your deck and add two new soul cards. During your main phase, you can play however many cards you have the soul cards to support, and you can play them in whatever order you want. As you get to later rounds, you’ll have a full deck of soul cards to work with, allowing you to chain several moves together or play super powerful cards to take advantage of the groundwork you laid in earlier rounds.
Both players start each game with 10 Life Points, and your ultimate goal is to reduce that to zero. However, when you attack them, they can choose to have one of their standing Pals take the attack in their place. If the player does take direct damage, they flip over cards from their deck equal to the strike value of the card that attacked them. If one of the cards flipped this way has the Lucky icon, then the player completely nullifies the attack.
Each round requires careful strategy. Will you directly attack the other player, knowing they can use a Pal to block you? Or will you target a specific Pal to get them off the board? Or take out a structure to nullify its bonuses? When your opponent attacks you, will you sacrifice a Pal to block the attack? Or take the gamble that you’ll flip a Lucky card? You constantly need to weigh your options and assess the risk vs. the reward.
The recommended way to jump into playing is with a Trial Deck. There will be two available at launch: Red/Blue and Green/Purple variants of Dawn of Palpagos. These Trial Decks include a play guide, paper playmat, life counter, and all 60 cards you need to start a new game right out of the box.
They also include Trial Deck Super Parallel cards that are only available in Trial Decks, as well as a Booster Pack to upgrade your deck from the get go. Palworld cards come in different rarity tiers, from Common all the way up to Super Parallel. There are also Super Special Parallels, which are ultra-rare variants of Super Parallels with special alternate art.
While the basics of the Palworld card game are easy to understand, there are also additional layers of complexity for more hardcore or competitive players. You can get Booster Packs on their own to diversify your deck and be more strategic about your build. The Dawn of Palpagos Booster Pack will be available at launch, while the Legends Awaken Booster Pack will go on sale October 30.
Building your deck means taking into account how certain cards can affect each other. For example, some Gear is particularly effective when paired with specific Pals. Some Pals directly synergize with each other. Others can change the board from day to night or vice versa, which activates the abilities of other Pals.
Those additional layers of strategy only figure to expand as time goes on, with Bushiroad already announcing a future roadmap of new pack releases. Sleeve and Card Set Vol. 1 releases on October 2, two new Trial Decks are coming on December 18, and Booster Pack Vol. 3 will arrive on January 29.
There are also in-person events and tournaments on the horizon. A demo caravan will have live tutorial events in local card shops throughout July and August, while the Grand Release Tournament will take place in August and the Shop Tournament will run from August until October. If you attend any of these events, you can get exclusive items like promo packs, deck cases, and other rewards.
For the latest news and updates about events and releases, you can check out the card game’s official website or follow it on Instagram, Twitter, Facebook, or YouTube. The YouTube channel also includes video tutorials with sample rounds to help you visualize game flow and different strategies.