Brace yourselves, everyone: the Monster Hunter Wilds Ascendance marketing machine is spinning up. Today, at Tokyo Game Show, Capcom released the an extended cut of the first official trailer for Ascendance, revealing the explosion-loving leonine monster, Teostra, as a huntable foe.

The infamously tricky Elder Dragon was first introduced way back in Monster Hunter 2 in 2006, its penchanct for blast effects and flame breath pushing the PS2 tech quite hard at the time. Though the developer has made some pretty decent improvements to how the game runs since launch, it does seem that the beast’s fiery attacks chew up the bitrate in the trailer a little. Here’s hoping that isn’t a reflection of the performance in-game.

One thing I did notice in this trailer is that the infamously tricky Teo fight looks even harder in the footage we’ve seen so far. Granted, the trailer is only three minutes-long (the real fight will probably take 10x that, in real-time), but it seems Capcom has given everyone’s favourite exploding lion a little more utility than we saw in his last appearance in Monster Hunter Rise – Sunbreak.

Teostra has long had a signature move that sees it divebomb you whilst setting off multi-blast novas (I love this game), but now Capcom looks to have given the beast charging follow-ups, too. That means, I think, that if you do manage to ‘superman’ dive out of the way of his AOE blasts, you will be faced with a massive, angry lion chasing you into walls or smacking you out of the air. Delicious. It looks like we’re going to need perfect dodges and/or perfect blocks in order to come out on top there.

We’re going to get some more tools to make this a bit easier, at least. The developer is introducing a ‘Boost Bracer’ for us to play with. “Build Boost Bracer energy by staying aggressive with your attacks, then activate Boost with a special Boost Driver attack, or other unique actions per weapon,” Capcom explained previously. “Boost enables abilities such as new combos and enhanced attacks, allowing you to seize control of the powerful threats that await you.” It seems this new mechanic will focus on offensive play, letting us soak up damage or counter attacks more readily than previous movesets allowed. Does this mean we’ll be able to ‘boost into’ Teo’s blasts, maybe dodging the first, negating the second, and then letting loose with a juiced-up combo to take advantage of the beast when he’s recovering from his onslaught? God, I hope so.

One of the core complaints about Monster Hunter Wilds from launch was how easy it was, especially compared to previous games in the series. But, with various patches since and this new expansion, it seems Capcom has taken the feedback seriously. If you played the Final Fantasy 14 crossover that introduced Omega Planetes, you’ll be familiar with this new, improved difficutly. That fight was not easy.

“Monster Hunter Wilds: Ascendance players can also look forward to several refinements to further improve their gameplay experience, including faster weapon swapping without the use of a Seikret mount, changing equipment outside the tent with the Item Box, and more,” adds Capcom in the video description for the trailer. “These improvements will also be available in the Monster Hunter Wilds base game.”

“Hunters can look forward to battling the fire-breathing Elder Dragon when the massive expansion launches in 2027,” says Capcom in a press release. We don’t have any word on when that might be, specifically, just yet, however. If you’re keen for more Monster Hunting goodness, though, you will at least be able to play the game on Switch 2 when it launches on 4th December.