Home Sweet Home (v0.7.0, released December 17, 2025) was Palworld’s last major update before the 1.0 launch, and it’s easy to undersell it as “just a building patch.” It wasn’t. It added a 909,000-HP raid boss with a two-phase typing switch, rewired melee combat for the first time since launch, and bolted on an ULTRAKILL crossover that gives you a self-repairing armor set built around punching things to survive[2][5]. If you skipped it waiting for 1.0, here’s everything that actually changed and what still matters now.
Quick Start: What to Do First
If you’re returning to Palworld after a break, work through this list in order rather than chasing whichever feature looks flashiest — some of it gates the rest.
- Confirm you’re on v0.7.0 or later (check the title screen version number, bottom-left)
- Reach character level 33 to unlock the Summoning Altar — everything Hartalis-related depends on it[6]
- Farm four Hartalis Slab Fragments before you go near the fight itself[6]
- Open your build menu once just to see the new list-based UI — the old radial menu is gone[3]
- Try Paint Mode on one wall before committing to a full base repaint — color options are per-material, not universal[2]
- Test the new melee combo (hold or spam attack with a sword/katana) against a low-level Pal before your first real fight, since the input timing changed[2][5]
- Only enable PvP if you run a private or dedicated server — Pocketpair shipped it explicitly labeled experimental, with balance issues expected[5]
Hartalis, the King of Salvation: Full Raid Breakdown
Hartalis is the headline addition, and it’s the first raid boss designed around a mid-fight typing switch rather than a straight damage race. At recommended level 65, it carries roughly 909,000 HP in its standard form and 1,212,000 HP in the Ultra variant — big enough that going in under-leveled just wastes your Slab Fragments[6].
How to summon it
Craft a Hartalis Slab from four Hartalis Slab Fragments at any workbench, then activate it at a Summoning Altar (unlocked at level 33). You can fight in a dedicated raid battlefield instead of your own base — take that option; Hartalis’s phase-2 AoE will wreck unprotected structures if you fight it at home[2][6].
The two-phase typing switch
This is the part most guides gloss over, and it’s the actual skill check of the fight. Phase 1 runs Water/Grass typing behind a barrier; Phase 2 drops the barrier framing entirely and switches to Neutral typing with AoE bursts and cover-crystal spawns[6]. Bringing a single elemental team for the whole fight means you’re either overkilling phase 1 or doing nothing in phase 2.
| Phase | Typing | Break with | Mount | Team |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Phase 1 | Water/Grass, barrier | Electric or Fire | Beakon (Electric) | 3x Gobfin + Wixen for the barrier |
| Phase 2 | Neutral, AoE + crystals | Dark | Frostallion Noct | 4x Gobfin, hide behind spawned crystals during the AoE window |
For weapons, the Overheat Rifle carries most of the phase 1 damage, with the Multi Guided Missile Launcher and Terraprisma (which summons sword strikes) covering burst windows in phase 2[6]. If your base roster leans Dark-type already — Shadowbeak, Frostallion Noct, or Necromus — you’re most of the way to a phase 2 team without extra breeding, though double-check any Necromus build against current numbers; our own best combat Pals breakdown has the corrected stat line.
Should you fight it yet? A quick decision check
- Under level 65, no barrier-break Pals: don’t attempt it. You’ll burn Slab Fragments for nothing — go farm levels and an Electric or Fire Pal first.
- Level 65+, only a phase 1 team: fight it once to learn the phase 2 transition, then retreat if you’re not confident — Ultra-form Hartalis punishes a slow team more than the standard version does.
- Level 65+, both typing counters ready: go for the standard fight first. Save the Ultra Slab for once you’ve seen both phases and know your crystal-cover timing.
Catching Hartalis outside the raid
A non-Ultra Hartalis also hatches from a Huge Common Egg, found as a world spawn or produced at a Breeding Farm using Hartalis x Hartalis[7]. Its Partner Skill, Sacred Barrier, generates an attack-blocking barrier while you’re mounted and lets you triple-jump — genuinely useful for traversal, not just a combat gimmick. It also doubles as base labor, sitting at Lumbering and Gathering level 7, both well above average[7]. If you want it purely for riding, our rideable Pals guide covers how Sacred Barrier stacks up against other mounted defensive skills.
The ULTRAKILL Collaboration
The crossover with indie shooter ULTRAKILL adds the V1 and V2 armor sets, both carrying a “Blood is Fuel” self-repair passive, plus the Marksman Revolver and Core Eject Shotgun (each with a Legendary variant) and the Hartalis-exclusive Crown of Salvation headpiece[4]. The Marksman Revolver’s signature trick, Ricoshot, has you throw a coin and fire so the bullet ricochets off it into nearby enemies — a genuinely different damage pattern from anything else in Palworld’s weapon roster, not just a reskin[2].
The two weapons play differently enough that picking one isn’t just cosmetic. The Marksman Revolver rewards precise, single-target play — Ricoshot is wasted on a lone enemy but strong against grouped mobs near a base raid, where the ricochet can tag two or three targets off one shot. The Core Eject Shotgun trades that setup requirement for raw close-range output, closer to how you’d already be using a standard shotgun, which makes it the easier of the two to slot into an existing loadout without relearning your positioning. Both Legendary variants push higher base damage and durability over their standard counterparts, so treat the standard version as a trial run before committing crafting materials to the upgrade. The Crown of Salvation, meanwhile, only drops from an Ultra-form Hartalis kill — it’s a raid trophy first and a stat piece second, so don’t hold off on other headgear waiting for a drop that isn’t guaranteed on any single run.
Base Building Gets an Overhaul
Forty-eight new building parts shipped with Home Sweet Home, including the game’s first triangular pieces — a real gap before this patch, since anything non-rectangular meant awkward foundation stacking[2][3]. Two changes matter more than the raw part count, though:
- Paint Mode: recolor supported buildings and foundations directly from the Foundations tab — no dye items, no crafting station[3]
- List-based Build UI: replaces the old radial/category wheel, plus a placement orientation arrow and a Cattiva icon that flags valid work-assignment tiles as you place structures[2]
If your base predates this patch, it’s worth a walkthrough with our base building guide open — several older layout workarounds (like faking angled walls with overlapping rectangles) are obsolete now that real triangles exist.
The orientation arrow and Cattiva work-tile icon sound minor but solve a specific, recurring annoyance: before this patch, placing a production building facing the wrong way or on a tile your Pals couldn’t actually path to meant tearing it down and starting over. Now the arrow shows facing before you commit, and the Cattiva icon flags valid work tiles in real time as you drag a structure into place — so a poorly-placed mining base or crafting line gets caught at placement instead of after you’ve already stocked it.
Combat, PvP, and Workshop Support
Swords, katanas, and beam swords got their first real melee rework: holding or spamming the attack button now chains consecutive combo strikes instead of the old single-swing-then-cooldown pattern, and katanas plus beam swords gained dedicated special attacks[2][5]. Pocketpair’s own patch commentary frames this as an opening pass rather than a finished system, so expect further melee tuning in later patches[5] — treat current combo timings as provisional, not final.
Two more additions round out the patch: an experimental PvP mode with adjusted damage values for servers that opt in, and Steam Workshop support for PC, opening the door to community mods for the first time through an official channel[2][3]. Neither is aimed at the average solo or co-op player, but if you run a dedicated server, both are worth testing on a backup save before you commit your main world.
Who Should Prioritize What
| Player type | Priority | Skip for now |
|---|---|---|
| New player | Level to 33+ normally, learn the new Build UI early since it’s now permanent | Hartalis — it’s a level-65 wall, not a new-player target |
| Casual player | Paint Mode for a fast base refresh, ULTRAKILL weapons for a mid-game power spike | Ultra Hartalis and PvP — high effort for low relevance to a casual save |
| Hardcore / optimizer | Hartalis Ultra farm for Crown of Salvation, dial in the phase 1/phase 2 team swap | Cosmetic building parts — low priority next to raid gear |
| Completionist | Catch a non-Ultra Hartalis via egg for the Paldex entry, grab both Legendary ULTRAKILL weapon variants | None — this list is the point |
Looking Ahead: What Happened to the Giant Whale?
If you remember Pocketpair teasing a giant whale-type Pal around this same period, that’s a separate thread worth untangling — it did not ship in Home Sweet Home. The whale, Panthalus, launched later, in Palworld’s full 1.0 update on July 10, 2026[8]. It’s worth covering here because the two updates get conflated online, and mixing up which patch added what is exactly the kind of stale information this guide is trying to avoid.
Panthalus turned out to be a Water-type Pal (Paldex #203), unlocked through a multi-step quest that starts only after you clear Auri, the new Sunreach Tower boss added in 1.0 — see our tower boss guide for that fight specifically. From there: collect four glowing Echobones off a whale skeleton, craft an Echoing Flute from a Blurry Schematic at the Ancient Workshop, then summon and fight Panthalus at the Deserted Islet within a strict 10-minute window. The encounter is scripted to leave it at very low HP, so any Pal Sphere catches it — but dying resets the whole chain, Echobones included[8]. It’s level 70 with roughly 350,000 HP, weak to Electric, and its Partner Skill, Resonant Guardian (unlocked at level 5), lets it fly as a mount despite being a Water-type[8].
Frequently Asked Questions
Is Hartalis worth fighting before level 65?
No — the recommended level isn’t a soft suggestion here. At 909,000 HP with a full typing switch mid-fight, an under-leveled team either times out or gets wiped in phase 2 before it can adapt[6]. Level up and build both a barrier-breaking team and a Dark-type team first; going in twice prepared beats going in early and burning Slab Fragments on a loss.
Does the new melee combo replace the old combat system entirely?
Only for swords, katanas, and beam swords — other weapon classes are untouched, and Pocketpair has said this is an initial pass with more melee changes planned[5]. Don’t over-invest in memorizing exact combo timings yet; they’re the most likely thing to shift in a follow-up patch.
Should I turn PvP on for my server?
Only if you’re running a private or dedicated server with a group that specifically wants it. Pocketpair shipped it flagged experimental with expected balance issues, not as a finished mode[5] — flipping it on for a live co-op world with strangers is asking for exactly the kind of exploit or imbalance the label is warning you about.
What happened to the giant whale Pal that got teased around this update?
It shipped later, as Panthalus in the 1.0 update (July 10, 2026), not in Home Sweet Home[8]. If you were holding off on Home Sweet Home waiting for the whale, you were waiting for the wrong patch — 1.0 is what actually delivered it.
Do I need the ULTRAKILL gear to beat Hartalis?
No. The Overheat Rifle, Multi Guided Missile Launcher, and Terraprisma carry the fight in existing guides, and none of them are ULTRAKILL items[6]. The V1/V2 armor and Marksman Revolver are a strong optional damage/survivability boost, especially the self-repair passive, but they’re a bonus layer on top of the fight, not a requirement for it.
What are the Ancient Civilization Cores from Hartalis actually for?
They’re a raid-tier crafting material used in high-end technology and structure recipes rather than anything Hartalis-specific — three per kill is a modest per-run yield, so if a recipe calls for a double-digit amount, plan on farming the fight multiple times rather than expecting one clear to cover it[6]. Check the exact recipe requirement before your first raid attempt so you’re not surprised by how many repeat runs it actually takes.
Key Takeaways
Home Sweet Home’s real value is the two systems most players will actually touch: a raid boss that forces you to build two different teams instead of one big one, and a building overhaul that finally gives you real triangular pieces and one-click recoloring. The ULTRAKILL collab and combo combat rework are good but secondary — worth grabbing, not worth restructuring a save around. And if you’re chasing the giant whale, stop looking in this patch; that’s 1.0’s addition, not this one[8].
Sources
- Palworld’s Home Sweet Home Update Is Here! — Pocketpair Inc.
- Palworld Home Sweet Home Update Patch Notes — BisectHosting
- All Patch Notes and Updates (Home Sweet Home Update) — Game8
- Home Sweet Home Content Guide — Game8
- Palworld Just Released Its Big New Home Sweet Home Update — GameRant
- How to Beat Hartalis Raid Boss: Best Pals, Weapons and Strategy — Game8
- Hartalis Location, How to Breed, and Drops — Game8
- How to Get Panthalus, the Giant Whale Pal — PC Gamer
Verified against Palworld v0.7.0 (Home Sweet Home) and 1.0 (July 10, 2026). Raid numbers, drop tables, and mechanics may shift in future patches — check the in-game patch notes before a farming run.
I've been playing video games for over 20 years, spanning everything from early PC titles to modern open-world games. I started Switchblade Gaming to publish the kind of accurate, well-researched guides I always wanted to find — built on primary sources, tested in-game, and kept up to date after patches. I currently focus on Minecraft and Pokémon GO.