Best Melee Weapons in Palworld, ranked

While Palworld is better known for its guns, you can also fight and slaughter the many Pals roaming the land with melee weapons.

Guns might seem preferable as you can attack from a distance, but they aren’t exactly easy to acquire. Plus, they need ammo, and if you ever run out, having a good physical instrument to bludgeon enemies with can help, especially if your own Pals are struggling during battle.

There’s only a small selection of melee weapons available in Palworld, so we’ve ranked them from worst to best. One thing to note is that there are other items you can use to physically attack enemies, like the axe you use to gather wood. But they’re not dedicated melee weapons; the items listed below are what you should prioritize if you plan to engage in close-quarters combat.

Another detail worth keeping in mind is that you can sometimes find schematics that allow you to make stronger variants of these weapons. So, you could craft a bat that’s more powerful than higher-tier weapons, but there’s a degree of randomness to acquiring schematics unless you’re willing to pay a merchant through the nose for them.

The seven best melee weapons in Palword

7) Wooden Club

When you first start Palworld, your initial options for defending yourself are severely limited. In fact, you’re guaranteed to make yourself a Wooden Club, as it’s one of the very first items you’re able to craft. You only need to be level one, it requires no Technology Points to unlock the crafting recipe, and the Club itself is made with only five pieces of Wood that you can easily find scattered on the ground or by punching trees. It’s easily replaceable, too, should you ever lose or discard it, though there’ll be no reason to hold onto it once you reach higher levels and unlock better weapons.

6) Stone Spear

The Spear is a welcome upgrade over the Club since it affords a bit more range, allowing you to stab at enemies from a greater distance. Unlocking it shouldn’t be too much of a hassle either, since it becomes available at level four and only requires two Technology Points. The crafting cost is a bit more demanding than the Club, as it needs 18 pieces of wood plus 6 stones, but these are very common materials. Just remember, if you want to be leveling up or acquiring resources quicker, feel free to adjust and customize the world settings to make things easier for you.

5) Bat

It doesn’t afford as much range as the Spear, but the bat is essentially a better Wooden Club. While we wouldn’t recommend using it for especially large or high-level Pals, it can make mopping up the smaller ones more of a breeze should you ever need specific materials. You need to be level seven for the recipe to become available, but you only need to spend one Technology Point to unlock it. Since you gain points with every level up, you can unlock the bat straight away if you wish. Ideally, by this point, you’ll have your own Logging Camp and Stone Pit for gathering Wood and Stone, so having the necessary crafting materials—30 Wood and 10 Stone—should be a non-issue.

4) Metal Spear

The Metal Spear does exactly what it says on the tin. It’s just a Spear, but stronger. Between this and the Bat, you really shouldn’t need the regular Club and Spear ever again, unless you want to make things deliberately tougher for yourself. But this is where obtaining new weapons gets a bit more demanding. While the Metal Spear recipe only needs two Technology Points to unlock, you not only need to be level 13 for the recipe and have already built a High Quality Workbench, but also have 27 Wood, 12 Stone, and 10 Ingots. Unlike the other two resources, Ingots can’t simply be found strewn about the world; you’ll need to craft Ingots yourself.

3) Stun Baton

Once you reach level 22, acquiring the Stun Baton should be your next port of call. As you can probably guess, this weapon emits electric shocks when it comes into contact with an enemy. Pals that have been electrocuted are much easier to capture, so this is a valuable weapon to have. Again, you need the High Quality Workbench to make it, but that shouldn’t be an issue by this point. The Technology Point cost is thankfully quite small—it only needs two points to unlock—but crafting it demands 20 Ingots and 20 Electric Organs, the latter of which can be farmed from specific Pals or bought from merchants.

2) Refined Metal Spear

By the time you reach level 34, it’s time to retire the Metal Spear and upgrade to its more refined successor. It only needs three Technology Points to unlock, but you should also have a Production Assembly Line built as well. The 36 Wood and 18 Stone required for crafting should be super easy to obtain by now, but the additional 10 Refined Ingot may take a while, since they require you to build an Improved Furnace, which only becomes available at the same time as the Refined Metal Spear, and have at least one Pal with the Kindling ability.

1) Sword

And here we are, the best melee weapon in Palworld, but also the most demanding, even if you’ve boosted the experience and materials you earn in the world settings. To craft the Sword, you need to be level 44, unlock the recipe with three Technology Points, and have the Weapon Workbench already built. Once all that’s done, you can make the weapon with 20 Wood, 20 Stone, and 30 Refined Ingots. Acquiring Wood and Stone should be a breeze at this point, and assuming you built the Improved Furnace as soon as you could, acquiring the Refined Ingots should be fairly simple too.