Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom devs on Gleeok return and more

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom director Hidemaro Fujibayashi and producer Eiji Aonuma have spoken about some of the enemies in the game, including the return of Gleeok. This comes in a recent interview with Nintendo Dream that we’ve translated.

Gleeok is an especially notable enemy addition as we haven’t seen it often in the series. For Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, having Gleeok in there came about when the team was thinking about including “a monster that could rival the Lynel from Breath of the Wild in strength for the new sky areas”.

Our translation of the interview can be found below, which includes talk about Horriblins as well. 

Among the new monsters, some of them are ones that haven’t reappeared in the series for quite some time. How did that come about?

Fujibayashi: For monsters, we prioritized gameplay when creating them. To match the sky, caves, underground and other new areas, we considered what monsters would be able to do well in them. For example, we wanted a monster that could rival the Lynel from Breath of the Wild in strength for the new sky areas, so it’d need wings to fly, be large and look strong… and as we thought about that, we remembered the Gleeok. While thinking about gameplay, we looked back to see if there were any monsters that fit what we needed from older games, and if something matched, we adjusted them to be implemented into Tears of the Kingdom. For the caves, to match the terrain, we wanted a monster that could latch onto the ceiling; since there wasn’t a monster that had that characteristic in previous games, we created the new monster Horriblins. Gameplay-wise, it’s possible to make weapons with long reach using the “Fuse” ability, and monsters like Horriblins let that feature shine.

Elsewhere in the interview, Aonuma and Fujibayashi spoke about the Boss Bokoblins, which is another new addition.

Some changes have been made to familiar monsters too. Such as how Boss Bokoblins can attack with groups.

Aonuma: Boss Bokoblins are meant for multi-person combat after all. They might be a bit hard for Link to handle alone at first, but having allies lets players charge at them with confidence. We wanted players to taste their own medicine, so we gave Boss Bokoblins a bunch of friends behind them.

Enemies coordinate their attacks too.

Fujibayashi: Even the enemies adhere to this game’s theme of cooperating with allies, leading to group battles.

Aonuma: I also think this lets players experience the fun of using new items to win. If you throw a Muddle Bub, enemies start attacking their own allies, letting you observe from afar. We thought a lot about enemy placement in relation to gameplay mechanics in development.

Translation provided by SatsumaFS, Philip Proctor, and Simon Griffin on behalf of Nintendo Everything.