From the very start of its inception, Monster Hunter Wilds has always been a love letter to what made the series special, while innovating in ways that it's never been able to before now. From bringing back fan-favorite monsters like Lagiacrus that haven't had a chance to shine in ages to even including several major characters from past entries, Wilds has plenty of Easter eggs hiding in plain sight.
This isn't to say that Monster Hunter Wilds is just a compilation of previous titles, as there is still a plethora of new monsters, quality of life features, and a near fully open world experience. Even with its new gameplay direction and revamped hunts, the recent addition of Gogmazios makes one theory about Monster Hunter Wilds' endgame and the return of one long-absent Elder Dragon even easier to believe.
Dalamadur's Return Has Been Teased For Years At This Point
The Monster Hunter franchise as a whole has no shortage of massive behemoths that dwarf a majority of its huntable monsters, and the absolutely gigantic serpent Elder Dragon Dalamadur is easily at the top of the list as one of its most ambitious offerings. Originally included as an urgent quest in Monster Hunter 4 Ultimate, Dalamadur's mountain-sized height and unique moveset easily made it one of the most memorable encounters in the game.
Even if Capcom hasn't made any official statements regarding the return of Dalamdur after its decade-long absence, both Monster Hunter World and Monster Hunter Wilds haven't shied away from teasing the monster's existence in a few unorthodox ways.
Starting with Monster Hunter World, the Rotten Vale area of the New World is home to a plethora of unrecognizable corpses and rotting monster parts, but many eagle-eyed players like KaiserGSaw on Reddit were quickly able to recognize the remains of more than a few Dalamadur's hiding in plain sight. As if it wasn't more obvious after seeing it, several areas of the map seem to be entirely made up of explorable Dalamadur remains.
Carrying on the trend of its last-generation predecessor, Monster Hunter Wilds had yet another recognizable corpse that was even used as the foundations of both the Grand Hub and the Wounded Hollow training area, with the shape of its skull fairly prominent in the latter.
Although these inclusions could be waved away as callbacks to an iconic moment from the series' history, there are far too many coincidences to simply ignore at this point.
Monster Hunter Wilds Can Finally Handle More Snake Wyverns
One of the reasons why it took so many years for Lagiacrus to come back is that Capcom was having technical difficulties getting their skeletons to work in the new game engine, which Wilds was finally able to overcome. As if the sea leviathan Lagiacrus wasn't enough, the base game offerings of Nu Udra and Wu Xu showed that Capcom has gone far beyond the limitations of its past entries.
Having already raised the hopes that we'd see even more new Mollusks or Snake Wyverns in Mosnter Hunter Wilds, it feels like it would be the perfect time to introduce Dalamadur as an intense late-game challenge, much like how Fatalis ended off Monster Hunter World's post-game content.
While it will likely be over a year before we get close to the end of all the content coming to Wilds, it would be a massively missed opportunity not to finally include the iconic Elder Dragon in all its former glory, especially after how beautifully Gogmazios was adapted in Wilds' fourth title update.
Compared to Monster Hunter World, Dalamadur fits even more perfectly into the story of Wilds as well, with the cataclysmic Elder Dragon's return being what pushed the inhabitants of Wyveria to such an extreme measure as creating the Guardians, which would also explain how the corpse ended up there in the first place.
Monster Hunter Wilds Has Already Borrowed Plenty From Monster Hunter 4
It's been an open secret that out of all the games in the series, Monster Hunter Wilds pays homage to, Monster Hunter 4 gets by far the most attention, to the point where Wilds has even been considered a spiritual successor to the original 3DS game.
From Genma being the grown-up version of Little Miss Forge, Fabius being the Ace Lancer, and bringing back monsters like Gore Magala, Seregios, and Gogmazios as core enemies of its end-game content, it wouldn't be a stretch to see Capcom going even further as to bring back one of MH4U's deadliest hunts after so long.
This isn't to say that Dalamadur is the only monster that is just begging to be brought back in a raid-style hunt similar to Gogmazios, either, as the similarly massive Jhen Mohran and Dahren Mohran would be an easy fit into the massive desert region seen in Monster Hunter Wilds' introduction sequence.
Even if Capcom decides to shift away from its MH4U inspiration when Wilds' Master Rank expansion inevitably releases, there is still plenty of room for more Elder Dragons to be brought over to the new generation, and if the current direction of Monster Hunter Wilds is anything to go by, it seems like only a matter of time before we see the grand return of the Serpent King itself.
