MH Wilds Ascendance Elder Dragons: Why the Story Is About Them, Who Is Confirmed and Who Could Be Next, With RageGamingVideos

Monster Hunter Wilds: Ascendance is built around Elder Dragons: Capcom’s executive director Kaname Fujioka says the story looks, for the first time, at why Elder Dragons appear and how they change the ecosystems they arrive in. Four are confirmed as of 30 September 2026: the new Gundoraja and the returning Teostra, Kushala Daora and Lao-Shan Lung.

RageGamingVideos, who played the Master Rank demo, argues that this makes Ascendance an Elder Dragon expansion in a way no Master Rank has been, and that more of them are coming than past expansions would suggest. We found the interviews he quotes at their source, kept his predictions clearly labeled as predictions, and checked the base game against our monster database. For the full list of confirmed monsters, including the small ones, see our Ascendance monster list; release and platforms are on the Ascendance page.

Why are Elder Dragons the focus of MH Wilds Ascendance?

Because the base game never explained its world, and the directors want the expansion to. In an interview with Jordan Oloman for postmode, Fujioka says Wilds showed the Forbidden Lands through Nata’s eyes, “with your boots on the ground”, and could not go as far as “what kind of land this is, or what happened here in the past.” Then comes the line RageGamingVideos puts on screen: “This is the first time we’ve really started looking into why Elder Dragons appear in the first place, and how they affect the ecosystems they appear in.”

He said much the same to GosuGamers at Tokyo Game Show 2026: “we really wanted to look at Elder Dragons and their history, how they came to appear in the world of Monster Hunter as a story theme,” and bringing back classic Elders is “not just fan-service.” He adds that the story needed a time skip so Nata and Nona could grow up, which is why Ascendance is set years after Wilds.

The base game makes the change easy to measure. Of the 34 large monsters in our database, only one is classed as an Elder Dragon: Gogmazios, and it arrived with Title Update 4, nearly ten months after launch. Gore Magala is a demi-elder, and the rest are wyverns, leviathans, fanged beasts and the Wyverians’ constructs such as Zoh Shia. Ascendance has four Elders confirmed before it even has a release date.

Which Elder Dragons are confirmed in Ascendance?

Four, all shown in Capcom’s trailers and listed on the official monster page.

Elder Dragon	Status	What has been shown
Gundoraja	New	“The Black Sky’s Wrath”, storm clouds and lightning, not the flagship according to RageGamingVideos
Teostra	Returning	The Expert quest of the TGS demo, fought in the Oilwell Basin, with a chained Supernova
Kushala Daora	Returning	Trailer scenes in a sandstorm and on grassland; “a living storm, the embodiment of disaster”
Lao-Shan Lung	Returning	The attack that opens the story and clears the mists over the Skybound Eyrie

Takuro Hiraoka, the game director, explained the choice of the two classics to GosuGamers: “When you think of Elder Dragons, maybe the first one you think of, the most symbolic or iconic one, is Kushala Daora. But also, I think Teostra is up there with the classic Elder Dragons.”

What is new about Teostra in Ascendance?

It can follow its Supernova with another attack. Hiraoka again: “there’s a whole new possibility beyond the Supernova, where Teostra can chain it into another move after that,” with new behaviors designed so that muscle memory from older games only gets you so far. RageGamingVideos calls it “double nova ridiculousness” and shows it from demo footage at 1:02, though that clip is too compressed to use as a screenshot here.

The same cinematic finally shows Teostra eating a blast core, behavior players always assumed and had never seen. RageGamingVideos reads it as proof that the Elders will get ecology scenes, not just fights.

Why is Kushala Daora back?

As the iconic Elder Dragon, in Hiraoka’s words, and as a disaster. The trailer introduces it with one line: “A living storm. The embodiment of disaster.” One shot shows a hunter bracing against it inside a sandstorm on open dunes; another has it crouched on dry grassland under a stormy sky.

RageGamingVideos places it in the Windward Plains and thinks the Elders will disrupt the cycle of Fallow, Inclemency and Plenty that drives weather in the Forbidden Lands. That is his reading; Capcom has not said where Kushala lives or what it does to the seasons.

Why did Lao-Shan Lung appear in the Forbidden Lands?

Capcom has not said why, only what happened: the trailer opens with “A great dragon, imposing itself upon us without warning”, a night attack and a retreat. Years later the Madoi Stronghold has been rebuilt to prepare for its return, and “when the great dragon came and left, the mists above cleared, revealing a constellation of islands”: the Skybound Eyrie.

RageGamingVideos points out how unusual that is. Lao-Shan Lung is a siege Elder that you would expect as a late title update, and here it carries both the time skip and the reveal of the new locale. For him, that is the clearest sign that Elders are the narrative, not just the endgame.

Is Gundoraja the flagship Elder Dragon?

No, according to RageGamingVideos, who says the developers confirmed it after TGS; we have not found that statement in the interviews we read. If he is right, the flagship is another new Elder Dragon still to be revealed, which would make at least two new Elders, three if the final boss is separate. He also notes that Gundoraja reuses a long-forgotten snake wyvern skeleton, a big step for a single new monster.

His other bet for a new Elder is a bird. The great bird Somult from the Windward Plains legend, and Araketa, a bird wyvern that he says the developers compared to Valstrax on purpose, make him think an Elder built on a bird skeleton “really has legs”. The Valstrax remark is his; it is not in the postmode interview.

Which Elder Dragons could appear in each locale?

RageGamingVideos expects at least one Elder per locale and fills the gaps himself. Only the first three rows have anything official behind them.

Locale	Elder Dragon	Basis
Windward Plains	Kushala Daora	Confirmed Elder; the locale is his reading of the trailer
Oilwell Basin	Teostra	Confirmed; the TGS demo quest is set there
Skybound Eyrie	Gundoraja	Confirmed Elder of the new locale
Scarlet Forest	Namielle	Prediction
Iceshard Cliffs	Velkhana	Prediction
Ruins of Wyveria	Shagaru Magala, or Nergigante	Prediction

That would be six Elders, five returning and one new, and he now thinks it could be more, with two per locale or a roaming Elder like Nergigante that invades every map. He adds Chameleos as very likely, to complete the trio with Teostra and Kushala as in Rise, and Valstrax for the Skybound Eyrie, “literally his kind of territory”. The opening “Chameleos, confirmed” in his video is a joke, which he apologizes for straight away.

Which surprise Elder Dragons does RageGamingVideos expect?

The wackier ones, and he gives his reasons. Gold Helmcrabs turned up in preview footage, and in Monster Hunter: World they only lived in the Caverns of El Dorado, Kulve Taroth’s home. The trailer’s Wudwud mining trio, in a golden tunnel with a yellow crystal held up like a prize, looks to him like the same kind of place. He still rates Kulve Taroth “very little chance”, especially since, as he recalls, the developers said in interviews that some things are added simply because they make sense.

The red ore area gets more weight. The Japanese preview footage he shows, credited to Takiei, notes endemic life from World: Iceborne living there, carcasses gathering as if it were a feeding ground, and Slinger Dragonpiercer and Dragonbane fruit lying around, with a Nerscylla on site. Dragon-slaying items near a mystery area are why he mentions Malzeno and even Gaismagorm, whose red rocks and Qurio energy the ore resembles. Both come from Sunbreak, and he labels them long shots.

Two more ideas sit on his list: a frenzied Guardian, since Wilds already mixes the Frenzy with Guardians, and Dalamadur as a later title update. And there is the unnamed black goop creature from the trailer, which he expects to interact with both the Guardians and the Elders.

Will Ascendance have a second new locale?

Not announced. Capcom lists one new locale, the Skybound Eyrie, plus the Madoi Stronghold as the new base. RageGamingVideos expects a second one because every Master Rank before it added two: Iceborne had the Hoarfrost Reach and the Guiding Lands, Sunbreak the Citadel and the Jungle. Whether it is a normal locale or a Guiding Lands style endgame area, he says it would need its own Elder, which opens yet another slot.

What should you hunt in the base game before Ascendance?

The one Elder Dragon you can already fight, and the monsters the predictions build on. Gogmazios, the Title Update 4 Elder, is the closest thing Wilds has to what is coming, and its armor is part of the current meta in our builds. Gore Magala is the base for any Shagaru Magala, and Nerscylla is the monster seen in the red ore area. Our weakness chart lists all three.

RageGamingVideos ends on three calls: more Elders than any past Master Rank, Elders that matter more in both story and mechanics, and a stranger selection than anyone expects, in the spirit of Lao-Shan Lung arriving at launch. The first two now have the directors’ own words behind them. The third is his bet, and the release in 2027 leaves plenty of time for Capcom to prove it right or wrong.