Elder Kraken is the adaptation that took Evolve’s flying artillery monster and forced it to brawl. Released on February 23, 2016, it keeps the silhouette of the original Kraken — tentacles, wings, electricity — but swaps the space-control kit for area damage zones and short-range burst. It is rated Moderate on the character select screen, and it plays nothing like the monster it is based on.
Quick answer: Elder Kraken is a close-quarters Kraken variant. Lightning Strike locks in place once cast, Banshee Missile is a fast unguided projectile, and the monster cannot use basic attacks while gliding.
Elder Kraken vs Kraken: What actually changed
Every ability slot has a direct counterpart on the original Kraken, but the behaviour is different enough that muscle memory from one does not transfer to the other. The trade is consistent — Elder Kraken gives up mines, knockback control and aerial pressure in exchange for damage it can only deliver up close.
| Slot | Kraken | Elder Kraken |
|---|---|---|
| Ability 1 | Lightning Strike, reticle movable while charging | Lightning Strike, fixed once cast |
| Ability 2 | Banshee Mine, homing, destructible | Banshee Missile, straight, indestructible |
| Ability 3 | Aftershock, wide pulse | Chain Lightning, small radius, chains between hunters |
| Ability 4 | Vortex, knockback wave | Death Spiral, damage-over-time zone |
| Air attacks | Ranged basic attacks while gliding | None while gliding |
That last row is the one that reshapes the whole character. Kraken can float above a fight and plink away at hunters with ranged melee. Elder Kraken has to land on top of them.
Elder Kraken stats by evolution stage
| Stage | Health | Armor | Heavy melee |
|---|---|---|---|
| Stage 1 | 8,000 | 3,000 | 225 |
| Stage 2 | 12,350 | 4,000 | 235 |
| Stage 3 | 16,200 | 5,000 | 250 |
Ground speed sits at 7.5 meters per second, the same as the base Kraken, while gliding is slightly quicker at 10 meters per second. Light attacks scale from 90 to 100 across the stages, air heavies land between 200 and 230, and attacks against an incapacitated hunter deal a flat 112.
Elder Kraken abilities and damage values
Each evolution hands you three points to spend across the four abilities, and the ability menu is where the monster’s identity gets decided. Ranks change radius, speed and cooldown more than raw damage on most of the kit.
| Ability | Damage (1/2/3) | Cooldown | Reach |
|---|---|---|---|
| Lightning Strike | 400 / 412 / 440 | 11 / 9 / 7 sec | 40 m range |
| Banshee Missile | 500 / 500 / 550 | 8 sec | 37–55 m/sec travel |
| Chain Lightning | 200–500 per chained target | 10 sec | 7–11.2 m, links to 19 m |
| Death Spiral | 200 / 206 / 220 per sec | 8 sec | 30 / 38 / 48 m length |
Lightning Strike
Lightning Strike channels for roughly a second and a quarter before the bolt lands. The critical difference from Kraken is that the targeting reticle cannot be dragged around mid-cast, so you are committing to a spot before hunters react. Hunters can see the marker and run, which makes it a punish tool rather than an opener. You can still melee while the cast is running.
Banshee Missile
Banshee Missile is a single plasma sphere that travels in a straight line until it hits something, then detonates for heavy damage and knockback. It does not home and it cannot be shot down, which is the reverse of Kraken’s Banshee Mines. At higher ranks the projectile speed climbs sharply, so the practical way to land it is to fire at a surface near a hunter instead of leading a moving target.
Chain Lightning
Chain Lightning charges an electric field and then discharges, jumping from hunter to hunter. Each additional link hits harder than the last, so a clustered hunter team takes escalating damage across the chain. The initial radius is far smaller than Kraken’s Aftershock — you need to be standing in the team to start the chain at all.
Death Spiral
Death Spiral spits a rotating storm that persists for four seconds and damages anything inside it. It is a zoning tool first and a damage tool second, useful for cutting off a corridor or punishing hunters who were knocked into it by another ability. It also carries through walls, which matters on the tight interiors where this monster wants to fight.
Lightning Strike and Banshee Missile both apply knockback, which pops hunters into the air and sets up follow-up hits before they land.
Air Burst traversal and its limits
Air Burst pushes the monster in the direction of the reticle and grants temporary flight. Out of combat it drifts back toward the ground on its own; in combat it only loses altitude when slowed, tranquilized or harpooned. It cannot burst upward when the monster is already more than 10 meters off the ground.
- Maximum stored traversals: 3
- Recharge delay before refilling: 1 second
- Recharge in combat: 4.66 seconds per charge
- Recharge out of combat: 6.66 seconds per charge
- No basic attacks of any kind while gliding
Side by side, Kraken arcs high and covers ground; Elder Kraken’s burst is flatter and hugs the terrain. All four abilities remain usable in the air, along with melee, but the low arc is the main reason this monster struggles to close distance on a team that keeps moving. Chasing is the weakest part of the kit, and coordinated hunters can exploit it.
How an Elder Kraken match plays out
Stage 1: feed on wildlife to build armor and fill the evolution meter while staying out of contact. Canyons, rock corridors and crevices give you cover to eat uninterrupted, and armor is the resource that decides whether a first dome is survivable.
Dome fights: when the trapper deploys the mobile arena, the close-range kit finally works in your favour. Stacking Chain Lightning into a grouped team and dropping Death Spiral on the Medic is the fastest route to a down. If the fight goes badly, waiting out the dome timer and leaving is a legitimate result.
Elite wildlife: eating elite creatures grants buffs that matter more than the meat itself. The two worth hunting are the armor regeneration bonus, which speeds up how quickly armor comes back, and a 15% damage output increase.
Stage 3 and the Power Relay: once the monster reaches Stage 3, the Power Relay becomes vulnerable and the objective flips. The relay sits inside tight interior spaces, which is exactly the geometry Elder Kraken wants. Pulling hunters into choke points around the relay core turns Chain Lightning and Death Spiral into team-wide damage that is hard to spread out of.
Elder Kraken progression rewards
Character progression runs to level 40 and mixes badges, keys and perk unlocks. Perks arrive in tiers — Savage Nature, Enhanced Senses and Brawler at the minor level, then Insatiable Hunger, Mutated Senses and Endurance as majors, with Ferocious Bloodlust and Deadly Brawler as the superior versions. Any perk already sitting at rank 3 is swapped for a 200 key payout instead.
- Level 35 — Elite Skin
- Level 40 — Prime Skin
- Key drops of 50 or 125 across most other levels
Why Elder Kraken has a reputation
Adaptations in Evolve are usually sidegrades or slight downgrades from the monster they are based on. Elder Kraken is the exception. The combination of a large health and armor pool, short cast times, an indestructible high-speed projectile, chained damage that scales with each target and a damage-over-time cone that ignores walls produces kill speeds the rest of the roster does not match.
The consequence is that it became the only character in the game to be banned at every level of play. Its one structural weakness — the flat traversal and the resulting trouble chasing a mobile team — is the reason some players still rate it as merely fun rather than dominant. Everything else about the kit is built to end fights in seconds, and if you are learning the monster role, Elder Kraken will teach you bad habits before it teaches you good ones.
