The Palworld breeding bug that was causing all Cattivas to be born cowards, and other species trait dominance, has been fixed in a new patch

Palworld - a pink cat pal Cattiva holds its arms out harvesting a farm

(Image credit: Pocketpair)

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February 29, 2024: Pocketpair has released the patch notes for Palworld version 0.1.5.1 that confirms a fix for this breeding bug.

The latest Palworld update has spawned another contentious change to the game: a bug to do with breeding Pals that's preventing amateur Pal biologists from perfecting Pal babies. Pocketpair is aware of the new bug, it says, and plans to fix the issue in another patch coming within the next couple of days.

Along with lots of other intended quality of life changes and bug fixes in Palworld update 0.1.5.0, there have been a few unintended consequences. Pocketpair has already apologized for accidentally fixing a bug that allowed players to catch tower bosses—an exploit even I took advantage of just for the fun of it. The issue with breeding is a new bug, however.

"There is an issue where Pals created through breeding retain their passives," Pocketpair has posted on X in a short list of known issues. "We plan to roll back this change as soon as possible."

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The unclear wording of the issue has caused quite a bit of confusion—Pals should inherit passive traits from breeding, right? That's the point. Players have already done all sorts of math and research to nail down just how that system works. The bug being resolved is Pals always being bred with a specific passive trait.

Cattiva, for instance, will always hatch with the passive trait "coward" as a result of this bug. Cattiva in the wild are always cowards, but breeding together two parents with different passive traits should give you a shot at a child inheriting some of those positives instead of automatically being slapped with cowardice at birth. With this bug fixed, players will once again be able to "breed out" certain passive traits from a particular Pal species by putting together parents with desirable traits.

Pocketpair community manager "Bucky," who posts the patch notes in the official Discord server, says that a fix is coming quickly. "It is rolled back in the next patch which is coming extremely soon. Within a day or two," Bucky said in response to a player.

Talking about passive trait inheritance is barely putting a toe into the weeds of player research around Pal breeding, which comes with extensive datamined info, statistics, calculators, and more. So it's no surprise that this enforced inheritance has upset the delicate balance of designer Pals.

All Pal breeding farms should resume normal operations soon, it sounds, in another patch presumably hitting later this week.

Lauren has been writing for PC Gamer since she went hunting for the cryptid Dark Souls fashion police in 2017. She accepted her role as Associate Editor in 2021, now serving as self-appointed chief cozy games and farmlife sim enjoyer. Her career originally began in game development and she remains fascinated by how games tick in the modding and speedrunning scenes. She likes long fantasy books, longer RPGs, can't stop playing co-op survival crafting games, and has spent a number of hours she refuses to count building houses in The Sims games for over 20 years.