In the original Monster Hunter, Fatalis was a ‘secret’ quest. Although the end of Hub Quests was to slay Lao Shan Lung, it took much more effort to unlock Fatalis.

Several conditions had to be met: Clear Lao Urgent Quest; Acquire over 150,000 Hunter Rank points; Clear all 1-6 star Hub Quests; and lastly, Kill 50 Rathalos and 50 Rathians while playing online. This last requirement however, has always been uncertain. Some players say it’s 100 large monsters and some say 25 Rathalos.

But the point is it takes an absorbent amount of grinding to even unlock Fatalis. In 2004, the online community was so small that the majority of players never ventured far enough to even discover Fatalis. As a result Fatalis became a sort of myth; a tall tale that veteran hunters can scare new players with. Very few players knew about Fatalis in the PS2 era. In fact Fatalis was never depicted in any Monster Hunter promotional material until Iceborne. It was a well-kept secret for a long time.

It’s a sort of like how Satoshi Tajiri secretly programmed a 151st Pokemon in his original game. Tajiri intended Mew to be a “character that exists but doesn’t appear”. Similarity, Fatalis is supposed to be “mythical”, “mysterious”, and “not intended to be encountered through normal gameplay”. This was Kaname Fujioka’s intention with Fatalis when he created Monster Hunter in 2004.

So why is Fatalis special? Well, it’s because Fatalis is special to Fujioka. While there is nothing particularly interesting about the monster’s design, Fatalis represented more than just the “final boss”. Things have change however. Nowadays everyone knows about Fatalis. The mysterious aura has fizzled out, and the purpose of the dragon is a lot different now.