Twitch Star Spends 37 Hours Attempting to Beat <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a Single Branch

You might assume that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, fans would have run out of novel self-imposed challenges that apply special rules on a gameplay session. Yet, while numerous gamers have tried to complete Tears of the Kingdom using just a stick, streamer PointCrow holds the record as the player who aimed to beat the game with a single branch—meaning, the very same one throughout.

PointCrow is famous for these kinds of challenge runs, like the time he went through the game solely with bombs or the attempt where he aimed to defeat the story with no stamina. A one-branch playthrough, however, seems unfeasible at first glance. There's the opening sequence, which forces the hero to wield the Master Sword. Additionally, there's the whole weapon wear mechanic, which is particularly important when working with the weakest weapon in the whole game. Yet if the branch shatters, that's the end. It's over.

So, How?

So, how? The simple explanation is glitches. The full story, I kid you not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can tweak the game's saving mechanism to have distinct game sessions that impact one another. So PointCrow does a “setup” file where he advances standardly, and the actual file, where he's limited. The preparatory save has him going through the prologue and initial tutorial island, and this Link gains maximum stamina and health. From this point, he starts a cutscene and pauses partway through to instruct the software to load an automatic save from the branch-only file. The system gets mixed up and generates a third save file that combines the conditions of the first two files.

This creates fresh problems, though. The merged file has a Link that never acquired the ability to access sacred places. Luckily, this is an issue that the file exploit fixes easily, but executing it means relying on an buggy version of the title that refuses to open certain areas. As with other obstacles, he has a technical workaround for it: He begins the game on its early version 1.0, and then updates the game partway through to make sure it starts functioning correctly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Other Hurdles

Curiously, the introductory version of the hero is programmed so that he is unable to break any weapons he wields, presumably to prevent a situation where the player gets stuck at the beginning of the game. But that's additionally how the streamer gets around the wear problem, as the Link he transfers between universes is the one from the start of the story. It's a smart technique, but not one that eradicates all potential friction. The branch is nonetheless a ineffective item that makes battles onerous. But at that stage, it's all a question of grit and perseverance. It also helps that there's a duplication glitch that gives him an abundant number of items to boost his attack, or accumulate on healing spirits. He additionally makes use of a glitch that enables him to clip through the world. A few would consider these methods grounds to question the validity of the run, but in my mind, he's a resourceful player who is ready to do anything necessary to engage his audience. He further implements a safeguard of sorts stipulating that, for every fairy he employs, he'll remove one viewer from his live stream, creating an motivation to avoid depend too much on them.

Major Battles and the Final Encounter

The streamer succeeds to get through many of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the fights appear painful. The video edit of his quest doesn't make the audience sit through the whole conflicts, which is a blessing when some of them last multiple hours. A particular boss fight, a powerful foe, requires an incredible twenty-three hours. The Ganondorf showdown, which depletes the hero's hearts as it progresses, is a memorable nail-biter. The indestructible stick is still only a piece of wood. He can't necessarily duplicate objects midway the fight.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow does defeat the dragon version of the antagonist. But the software compels the user to use the Master Sword as the final strike, so technically, it's not fully a stick-only playthrough. But what fun is that?

In the end, PointCrow banned more than a thousand users in his Twitch chat. RIP.