Monster Hunter Online was a Spin-Off of the long-running popular Monster Hunter franchise, released only for China and developed by Tencent Games under Capcom's supervision and approval. The game further emphasizes the Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game nature of the series with a strong emphasis on purely online quests along with an engine overhaul by using the CryEngine 3 allowing for more detailed textures, environments, lightning and graphics in general. The game's flagship monster is the Estrellian. The game's servers were shut down in 2019, the same year as Monster Hunter Frontier's own servers were taken down and therefore the game is no longer playable.
The game contains examples of the following tropes:
- Aborted Arc: The Estrellian encounters were meant to lead into a whole storyline about discovering its adult form, as it was merely a juvenile Elder Dragon. Sadly, the game's servers shutting down cut short the story and thus the answer may never be known.
- Art Evolution: As a result of better graphics many monsters have their designs updated and made much more organic with more detailed body parts.
- Canon Foreigner: Many new monsters are made for this game such as Caeserber, Baelidae, Slicemargl and Estrellian. None of them have ever appeared in any mainline installment unlike the Frontier monsters, however.
- Defunct Online Video Games: Since the servers shut down in 2019 and the game was online-only, it can no longer be legally played.
- Expy Coexistence: Various mainline monsters appear alongside their Suspiciously Similar Substitutes from Frontier, such as Abiorogu/Deviljho, Nargacuga/Dyuragaua, etc.
- Mascot Mook: The Estrellian is the flagship monster and one of the toughest monsters in the game.
- Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game: One of two games in the franchise (along with Monster Hunter Frontier) to majorly emphasize this, running entirely on online servers and ultimately being shut down entirely when said servers got shut down.
- Mephistopheles: Despite not being the demon himself, the Black Dragon Merphistophelin shares both the name and appearance with his literary namesake. On top of that, it also can steal the elemental power of other Large Monsters in the manner of a Soul Eater.
- Transplant: Various Frontier monsters were added to the game in expansions, among them being Espinas, Hypnocatrice, Lavasioth, Dyuragaua and Abiorugu.
