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How to catch wild Aniimo
Catch rates, pod discipline, and the creatures the game will not let you have.
The short version
- Being under-levelled relative to the target lowers your catch odds, so your own level is part of the maths.
- The displayed catch percentage is a percentage. A pod can shake and still fail.
- Save Anipod Ultras for Alpha Aniimo. Standard wild creatures do not justify them.
- Alpha status is not a guarantee of high potential, and low potential does not mean worthless.
- A sparkling potential aura is not the same thing as a sparkling variant, and sparkling variants give no stat increase.
- Raise your World Level before a catching run and the wild creatures come out higher level.
- Pawney cannot be caught directly in the wild early on. Omega Aniimo cannot be caught at all.
Catching in Aniimo is not one skill. It is three. There is the throw itself, which is a percentage and a gamble. There is the decision about which pod to spend. And there is the part most new players skip entirely, which is looking properly at what you just caught before you commit to it.
Get the first one wrong and you waste a throw. Get the third one wrong and you release something you wanted, or you register something you did not.
Here is what the beta footage establishes about all three, plus the two creatures you can stop chasing right now.
The percentage is not a promise
The game shows you a catch percentage before you throw. Treat it as exactly that. Capture attempts can still fail after the pod shakes, so a promising shake means nothing until the catch actually resolves. Plan on repeat attempts rather than a clean first throw.
Your own level feeds into that number. Being a lower level than the target creature reduces your catch odds, which means an under-levelled hunt burns pods faster than the encounter itself suggests. If a species is fighting you harder than expected, the level gap is the first thing to check.
Spend pods like they cost something
High-tier Anipods, Anipod Ultras included, should be saved for Alpha Aniimo. Standard wild creatures do not warrant them. Every Ultra you throw at a common is an Alpha attempt you will not have later.
That restraint matters because catching is repetitive by design. You catch the same Aniimo again and again until one turns up with good stats, and that grind is what drains your stock. Cheap pods for the volume work, Ultras held back for the encounters that will not come round again.
Standard wild Aniimo
- Use ordinary pods here rather than high tier ones.
- Catch repeatedly until one with good stats turns up.
- Low potential creatures can still hold value.
Alpha Aniimo
- Save high tier Anipods, such as Anipod Ultras, for these.
- Alpha status does not ensure a high potential Aniimo.
Raise your World Level first
Capturing wild Aniimo after increasing the World Level yields higher-level creatures. That is a straightforward multiplier on your time, because it reduces how much experience you need to grind into them afterwards.
The practical version: if you are about to do a long catching run and a World Level increase is available, do the increase first. The same throws produce better starting material.
Read the creature before you commit
Before you register or release an Aniimo at camp, check three things: its Alpha status, whether it is a weather or special form, and its potential grade. Camp decisions are where a good catch quietly becomes a bad one, and all three of those are visible if you look.
Two assumptions to drop. Alpha status does not ensure a high-potential Aniimo, so an Alpha is not automatically a keeper. And low potential does not automatically mean release, because creatures with low potential can still hold value.
The word sparkling does double duty here, which trips people up. A sparkling potential aura is distinct from being a sparkling variant. And the variant itself is cosmetic: sparkling variants offer no stat increases over standard forms. Catch one because you like it, not because you expect it to hit harder.
The ones you cannot catch
Omega Aniimo cannot be captured. Not with better pods, not at a higher level. If you are throwing at an Omega, you are throwing away pods.
Pawney is a softer no. It cannot be captured directly in the wild during early gameplay, so an early hunt for one is wasted effort. Knowing both of these in advance saves the kind of long, patient, entirely pointless session that beta players tend to run at least once.
Where to start
Level up, raise your World Level, then hunt with cheap pods and keep the Ultras for Alphas. Check Alpha status, form and potential at camp before you register or release anything. And leave Omega alone.
Questions this answers
Each of these is answered on its own page, with the sources behind it.
Built from 10 facts gathered before launch, each checked against the sources it came from. How we know this, and who we learned it from.