Elder Dragon Encounters: The Climax
Unlocking Elder Dragon encounters in Monster Hunter: World involves a variety of progression milestones. These include finding and capturing monsters across different ranks, completing optional quests, and engaging with villagers. Fully researching monsters and hunting tempered versions also contribute to unlocking these climactic battles.
To unlock Elder Dragon encounters, several conditions must be met:
- Finding Monsters: Discovering monsters in low, high, and master rank all count separately towards progression.
- Capturing Monsters: Successfully capturing monsters in low, high, and master rank each contribute separately.
- Villager Interactions: Talking to Villagers marked with a '(!)' in Astera, the Research Base, or Seliana can unlock new content.
- Optional Quests: Completing previous Optional quests is often a prerequisite.
- Rare Encounters: Engaging with randomly available Rare encounters, which last for 2 quests and then disappear, can also be a factor.
- Monster Research: Fully researching monsters, meaning completing all tabs in their respective monster manual entries, is necessary.
- Tempered Monsters: Hunting a certain number of different tempered monsters contributes. Quests or investigations with multiple tempered targets only register the first listed.
- Assigned Quest Progress: Your current progress level for Assigned Quests is a key determinant.
One specific Elder Dragon encounter mentioned is to Slay Vaal Hazak in the quest The Eater of Elders.