Gundoraja emerged as the clearest sign that Monster Hunter Wilds: Ascendance is not treating its expansion like a simple add-on. On Thursday 3 September, the latest trailer in PlayStation State of Play introduced the new Elder Dragon and showed that the story has moved on after a time-skip.
The trailer also showed Nata and other younger characters after they have grown up, which gives the expansion a sharper before-and-after line than a standard monster reveal. Players of Monster Hunter Wilds now have a larger story frame around the new hunt content, and Capcom is using that structure to sell Ascendance as a true follow-up rather than a side package.
Gundoraja and the new roster
The trailer revealed two new monsters, including Gundoraja and a mysterious new creature that has not yet been named. Gundoraja has a long, serpentine body, can fly without visible wings, and can control storms at will. It suddenly emerged amid the inclement weather affecting Skybound Eyrie, which makes it look less like a random encounter and more like a force tied to the region’s conditions.
The unnamed monster is much smaller, about the size of a Jagras, but the trailer gives it a nastier visual hook. It emerged from the corpse of a Guardian Doshaguma while expelling a gooey substance, then distended almost the entire front half of its body to reveal an oversized set of jaws. That kind of design language usually signals a creature built for ambushes or close-range pressure, even before the game explains its role.
Nata after the time-skip
The expansion takes place after a time-skip following the base game, and that choice does more than refresh costumes or scenery. It places Nata and other younger characters in a visibly older stage of life, while deposits of Wylk and Guardian Monsters now appear outside the Ruins of Wyveria. The setting has moved enough to justify new threats without pretending the old map was untouched.
Monster Hunter Wilds launched without a single Elder Dragon in its roster, even though Ascendance now centers multiple Elder Dragon reveals. That gap matters because the series has always used those monsters as escalation points, the kind of creatures that rewrite a hunt instead of just decorating it. The base game later added its first Elder Dragon, Gogmazios, in a later update, and Ascendance is pushing the roster harder from the start.
Lao Shan Lung at the Stronghold
The trailer also teased the returning Elder Dragon Lao Shan Lung and a new home base called the Stronghold. The Stronghold appears to have been built to protect the settlements in the Forbidden Lands against Lao Shan Lung, and hunters will need to stop it from being destroyed while using cannons and other heavy weaponry.
That setup points to a defense sequence that still ends in direct combat, not a pure siege minigame. Hunters will have to repel or slay Lao Shan Lung with their weapons after using the Stronghold’s defenses, so the encounter looks built around switching between artillery pressure and close-quarters damage. For players, the useful takeaway is simple: Ascendance is adding a monster roster update, a story jump, and a large-scale hunt format in one pass, but it has not given a release date yet.
