On 20 October the official Palworld Popularity Poll 2026 results were announced. In the Pal category, Sekhmet took first place, Solenne second and Chillet third; in the character category the top three were Zoe, Auri and Saya. The same announcement also mentioned that the next major version, Palworld: Side by Side, will launch this winter.
Poll Results: Sekhmet First, Chillet Still Third
This year drew more votes than last, yet none of the names on the list are unfamiliar. Sekhmet took the crown, Solenne came second and Chillet third; two of the top three are old faces that have been with players for a long time.
The first thing plenty of people asked in group chats was whether Sekhmet ranking this high means it is actually strong.
Let us be clear about one thing: the poll measures how much people like a Pal, not how useful it is. Pals with appealing designs and settings that click naturally pull more votes, but their work suitability and combat role may not be the best value in the current version. To judge whether a Pal deserves your resources, look at three things: its work suitability level, its passive skills, and whether it can take a worker off your current production line. Finishing first in a poll and helping you bake two more bags of flour are two different matters.
Chillet sitting in third actually says a lot. It has been an old friend of players since before 1.0, and it can still hold a top-three spot after so many versions, which shows the veteran player base has never scattered. For newcomers this is good news: guides for these Pals are the most complete and their breeding routes the most mature, so starting with them means fewer pitfalls. We have put the breeding routes together in the Pal section on GameHub if you want to check them.
Breeding: Understand It Before You Open the Ranch
The moment the winter update goes live, the ranch is probably the first place that gets busy, and breeding is the last thing you want to scramble for at the last minute.
A ranch needs cake to run, and the cake recipe can be found at the cooking station. But simply knowing you need cake is not much use: toss any two Pals in and they will still lay eggs, and whatever hatches will most likely end up in storage. What really decides whether the output is worth anything comes down to three things.
First, the target. The breeding combination directly determines what the offspring will be, so the order cannot be reversed. Look up the Pal you want and find out who its parents are, then go and catch those parents. Doing it the other way round, breeding whatever you happen to have on hand, is certainly less bother, and it is also the fastest way to fill your boxes with Pals that just take up space.
Next, passives. Offspring inherit their parents' passives, but the inheritance is random. From the same pair you may need to hatch a dozen eggs or more before you get one individual with four useful passives. A dozen eggs, hatched one at a time: anyone who has done it knows how much patience that takes. So screen the parents first, and only start breeding once each of them carries two useful passives. It sounds like extra work, but it saves time. Offspring from blank-slate parents will most likely need another round of culling anyway, and all the time you saved early on gets paid back later. In practice, screening parents first raises the share of useful eggs noticeably.
Finally, mutations. The mutation system introduced in 1.0 lets breeding produce stronger individuals at a low probability. That probability is too low to put on a schedule, so keep your mindset right: taking a swing at it in passing is fine, but your main effort should still go into reliable passive screening. Counting on a mutation to deliver is about the same as counting on a single pull to land the banner character.
The Best-Value Moves Before the Winter Update
Side by Side is set for winter 2026. As for the exact day, the official announcement says not a word.
Not knowing the date is actually a good thing, because it means you have room to breathe. Wait until the announcement comes out to start, and it turns into a crunch.
Cake ingredients should be stocked early. A cake needs flour, red berries, milk, eggs and honey, and of those five, milk and eggs can only come from the ranch, which means ranch capacity has to be scaled up first. Do not wait until update day to find out you are short on eggs; you will not be the only one queueing for hatches by then.
Get the production lines running smoothly first, and do not rush to expand your base. v1.0.4 lowered the work suitability required to gather ancient bark to Lv.1, which brought the barrier for early wood-related lines down a lot. That is good news, and also a reminder: rather than rushing to open a third base now, it is better to make the existing lines run smoothly. The update will most likely bring new building content, and leaving some open ground beats packing everything full.
Then there is catching Pals. A new version usually arrives with new building and production demands, and at that point the most valuable individuals are the ones with broad work suitability coverage. Catching a batch now of Pals that are decent at all three of mining, logging and transport is the cheapest it will ever be. Catch them after the update and you double both the time and the patience required.
Do Not Treat Old Guides as the Current State
The 1.0 full release launched on 10 July 2026, adding 72 Pals, 47 of them brand new and 25 variants, bringing the total to 287. The player level cap rose from 65 to 80, and the Sunreach and World Tree regions opened up. Guides still being written online with a level 60 cap are at least four months out of date. Follow them and you are playing someone else's version from four months ago; that is a lesson you only need to learn once.
Two more things people often ask about. Awakening is a system added in 1.0 that uses Radiant Gems from the World Tree to upgrade Pals. The materials come in far more slowly than breeding, so use them only on Pals that will stay in your team long term, and do not waste them on transitional individuals. v1.0.5 fixed an issue where, for some players, terrain and building textures loaded at a noticeably reduced resolution. It does not affect gameplay, and if the visuals looked blurry before, they will be normal after the update. Your graphics card is not getting old.
Coming Back Now: Is It Worth It?
If you have an old save, just come back, there is no need to start over. The 1.0 level cap and region expansion are both additive, so old saves can still progress. The first thing to do on returning is not to farm Pals, but to look at your base and see how work suitability is being assigned. After 1.0 the efficiency calculation for many production lines changed; put people in the wrong spots and the line runs slow, and plenty of players still assume it is the Pals' fault.
New players are the opposite case: do not rush into breeding. The goal for your first 20 hours is plain, get the base running and push your level past 30. Breeding is a mid-game activity, and reversing the order makes the early game feel slow and tedious. That is the step where a lot of people quit.
A poll makes noise for a day; a version lasts you several months. Sekhmet took first place, and congratulations to it, but your ranch will not get stronger on its own because of a poll result. Cakes have to be baked one at a time, and eggs with the right passives have to be hatched one at a time; that is work no vote can do for you. By the time Palworld: Side by Side launches, others will still be combing the map for parents while you are already breeding the second generation.
Palworld FAQ: Questions About the Poll and Breeding
Is Sekhmet, the most popular Pal, strong?
A: Popularity is not the same as strength. Sekhmet took first place in the Pal category, but whether it is worth investing in depends on its work suitability and passives. Check the suitability description in the in-game Palpedia before you decide.
Does breeding always require cake?
A: Yes. The Palworld breeding ranch needs cake to operate. Cake is made from flour, red berries, milk, eggs and honey, and the recipe can be found at the cooking station.
When does the winter update launch?
A: The official word is only winter 2026. No specific date has been announced, so do not believe leaks claiming an exact date.
Can mutations be farmed reliably?
A: No. Mutation is a low-probability event. You can only take a swing at it in passing; your main effort should still go into screening the parents' passives.
Should I expand my base or fix my production lines now?
A: Fix the lines. Ancient bark gathering has already dropped to Lv.1, so get the existing base running smoothly first and save the space for the new building content in the winter update.
Palworld Pre-Winter Update Action List
- This week: stock up on cake ingredients for the breeding ranch, and scale the ranch so at least two breeding pairs can run at the same time.
- Catching: prioritise individuals whose work suitability covers mining, logging and transport. It is the cheapest route.
- Passive screening: get two useful passives onto each parent before you start breeding. Do not force hatches from blank-slate parents.
- Base: fix the existing production lines first; there is no rush to open a third base.
- Awakening materials: use them only on Pals that stay in the team long term; do not invest in transitional individuals.
Once Side by Side launches, a comparison version of this guide will be published on gghubs.com.