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.
