where's everyone getting 'always online' from?
MH on handhelds in Japan is almost entirely local multiplayer, there would be no point running online server events there. They had to let you download everything at once so you could play the event quests offline. On consoles, online will be how people do multiplayer, so they can go back to how MH console releases worked in the past.
It's not DLC in the sense that you go on the playstation store and download new missions. It's just quests that get cycled in, often with unique rewards. For example you do a silly themed quest, and farm up a bunch of tickets that you can use to forge a lance that is just a shark you hit things with.
They very specifically said they would not be doing more than 4-player hunts in the Arrekz interview. The other thing could be possible though?