The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom Has a Huge Surprise for Fans of the Original Game

By Tyler Fischer

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom has a mammoth surprise for fans of the original game. The Zelda series technically got its start in 1986 as The Hyrule Fantasy: Zelda no Densetsu in Japan. A year later, it came west as The Legend of Zelda and via the NES. It is obviously widely considered one of the greatest and most influential games of all time, and spawned a mega Nintendo franchise that is set to continue next month with the aforementioned Switch title, The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. And when the Breath of the Wild sequel releases next month, it will bring back a classic monster that debuted in the very first Zelda game and that hasn't been seen 2007's The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass on Nintendo DS. 

More specifically, and after 16 years, Gleeok has returned. How do we know this? Well, a recent ad for the game confirmed as much. To newer players of the series, all they saw was a cool three-headed monster. That said, it was a nice surprise for hardcore and OG Zelda fans who have had to wait a while to see the monster, which has only appeared in three games total so far, not including Tears of the Kingdom.

It remains to be seen how prominently the monster will place in the game, but we know it rears it three-headed self at least once for what looks like a major fight. The fact that in the ad the type if specified as "flame" does suggest there will be more than one type though, and thus more than one apperance. 

For those that know nothing about the Gleeok, it's a monster that serves as a recurring boss fight dating back to the original game. They are some type of dragon monster that sports more than one head, and often when these heads are cut off, they will continue to fight independently until the whole thing has been defeated. Lore wise, not much is know about them, but this is the case with many things in the Zelda series.

The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is set to release worldwide on May 12. When it releases, it will cost $69.99 and be available via Nintendo Switch, Nintendo Switch Lite, and Nintendo Switch OLED.

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