Ascended Fanon: Deviljho is referred to as a pickle by the Handler, referencing the popular fan nickname it earned. Its Tempered Event Quest is also called Relish the Moment.
Bazelgeuse's existence was leaked online very shortly before the game's launch, being one of the only monsters not included in any trailers. Amusingly, the low quality of the leak lead many players to assume it was just a drawing.
A leaked list of post-launch monsters came up online sometime after the game's initial updates. It particularly included Kulve Taroth (then known only as "Treasure Dragon"), Alatreon (who would eventually be added in Iceborne) and Oroshi Kirin (who would be Dummied Out).
Development Gag: Iceborne's Blackveil Vaal Hazak is an only slight retooling of a previously abandoned "mold dragon" concept of the original Monster Hunter (2004). Both versions are covered in fungal spores that emanate from the body to punish nearby hunters. Even the details, such as mold-covered eyes providing flash pod immunity and its forest habitat, are carried from the old version to the new Blackveil.
Dummied Out: Code for Mega Dash Juice (which is a longer-lasting version of Dash Juice) exists in the game's files, but was never made available to players.
Newbie Boom: The pitch for World as a big AAA title for the Xbox One, PS4, and PC seemed to work for Capcom, as following its reveal trailer at E³, there was a sudden spike in Western interest in the franchise, many of whom had never heard of Monster Hunter prior and were intrigued by the trailer for World. Within a week of its console release, it sold 6 million copies, which is more than the lifetime sales of any prior release in the series except for 4 and Generations. note 4 sold 8.3 million and Generations sold 6.45 million, counting their original and Updated Re-release versions together. Since then, it has gone on to be Capcom's best-selling game to date, with over twelve million copies shipped, most of these to new Hunters.
The game would get a second surprising resurgence at the end of 2023, with the reveal of Monster Hunter Wilds, and Capcom devs essentially ask people to come back to World in preparation. And thanks to a timely Steam sale, this in turn led to a surge of new players looking to try the game out — even big streamers like Asmongold who had never played the game before. Since then, the number of concurrent players has since then hovered at around the 150000 mark, which is impressive for a 6-year-old game.
No Export for You: Inverted with the Xbox One version, which doesn't exist in Japan due to the commercial failure of the console there.
The Wyvern Ignition "Steel"/"Impact" Great Sword available from an event quest was the winner of a weapon-designing contest.
The "Black Eagle" Charge Blade in Iceborne was also the winner of a similar fan design contest.
Production Lead Time: Compared to many of the previous games in the series, whose developments (particularly done side-by-side between the console and handheld games) allowed them to be up to date regarding the contents seen in each released installment, Monster Hunter World (released in 2018) was very unlucky. Its development began in early 2014, but because of its secluded planning phase and the time required to incorporate the monsters' skeletons into the physics of the then-new graphical engine for the series, the game prescinded from all sorts of content featured in the fourth-generation and late third-generation games, with the exception of the Insect Glaive and Charge Blade weapon classes. For this reason, someone who hasn't played too many MH games would have thought at first that the game's predecessor was Monster Hunter 3 (Tri) (released in 2009) due to the presence of Barroth, Uragaan and Deviljho; rather than Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate (released in 2017, only one year before World itself). The Iceborne expansion rectified this by adding newer veterans like Zinogre, Brachydios (including its Raging variant in a post-release update), and Glavenus.
Schedule Slip: The fourth Iceborne title update, which added Alatreon, was originally slated to for a May 2020 release but got pushed back to July due to the COVID-19 Pandemic and associated quarantines. The voice acting for the update was also affected, as not all the actors were able to record during the lockdown.
Sequel First: In the West, this game was released before its predecessor Monster Hunter Generations Ultimate.
Lagiacrus was originally intended to appear in the full version of World, but was scrapped due to not functioning properly in an earlier version of the game. Specifically, the problem was due to Lagiacrus having most of its body lying across the ground, as the game's engine isn't powerful enough to accurately animate it across the uneven terrain that comprises most of the game's landscapes. Every attempt to fix this ended up compromising the rest of the game, so Lagiacrus and other monsters with similar body types like Leviathans and Snake Wyverns had to be excluded. Fatalis is the only exception to this, and shows why — the dev team had to push the engine to its limit to get Fatalis' movement coded properly.
Concept art from Dive to Monster Hunter World: Iceborne points to several monster designs that never made it into the final game.
Velkhana was originally meant to be a gryphon, with the draconic scales being added later. It still retains many avian-like traits, having a beak for a mouth and wing webbing which resembles feathers when it's not using its ice armor.
Namielle was also proposed as some kind of cephalopod before the art direction slowly shifted to a salamander-like dragon with sealife traits.
There is evidence to support that Oroshi Kirin was meant to be added in one of the Title Updates, with its name being among the leak that got both Kulve Taroth and Alatreon correctly, and its icon being present in the files, before one of the updates removed it altogether.
Working Title: Kulve Taroth was known just as "Treasure Dragon" in a leaked list of Monsters.
Non Tropes
Rathalos and Kushala Daora are the only previous mascots to be present in the base version of World. The Iceborne trailers have confirmed to bring back a lot of previous generation mascots.
Glavenus is the only monster from the fourth generation to return.
All of the subspecies in the vanilla version are from the first generation games. (Azure Rathalos, Pink Rathian, and Black Diablos)
Kirin and Fatalis are the only returning Elder Dragons from the first generation. Alatreon is the only returning Elder Dragon from the third generation. All other Elder Dragons are from the second generation.
There were only three turf wars in the vanilla version of World that ended in a draw. They were Teostra vs Kushala Daora, Lunastra vs Kushala Daora, and Deviljho vs Bazelgeuse.
Nergigante and Vaal Hazak are the only monsters in the vanilla version that didn't lose a turf war.
This game marks the first time a flagship title for Monster Hunter has included monsters from another series as part of a crossover - Stories, a Spin-Off, had Kumashira from Kumamon, Epona from The Legend of Zelda, and Kurenai Goukami from Puzzles and Dragons.
, the problem was due to Lagiacrus having most of its body lying across the ground, as the game's engine isn't powerful enough to accurately animate it across the uneven terrain that comprises most of the game's landscapes. Every attempt to fix this ended up compromising the rest of the game, so Lagiacrus and other monsters with similar body types like Leviathans and Snake Wyverns had to be excluded. Fatalis is the only exception to this, and shows why — the dev team had to push the engine to its limit to get Fatalis' movement coded properly.