Streaming Star Dedicates 37 Straight Trying to Conquer <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a Single Branch

You might assume that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, enthusiasts would have exhausted novel self-imposed challenges that impose unique restrictions on a playthrough. However, while numerous gamers have attempted to finish the game using only a stick, streamer PointCrow holds the record as the player who endeavored to beat the game with a single branch—specifically, the exact same stick throughout.

The streamer is renowned for these kinds of challenge runs, like the time he went through the game using only explosives or the attempt where he tried to defeat the game with no energy. A one-branch run, though, sounds unfeasible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which forces Link to wield the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the whole weapon wear mechanic, which is particularly important when working with the weakest weapon in the entire world. Yet if the branch shatters, that's the end. Game over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The simple answer is exploits. The full answer, I kid you not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have separate playthroughs that impact one another. So the creator does a “setup” file where he progresses standardly, and the real file, where he's limited. The preparatory save has him completing the intro and initial tutorial island, and this character gains maximum stamina and hearts. From here, he starts a cutscene and halts partway through to tell the game to open an automatic save from the branch-only file. The game gets confused and generates a third game file that merges the conditions of the first two files.

This causes new issues, though. The fused save file has a protagonist that never acquired the capability to enter sacred places. Luckily, this is an issue that the save glitch addresses easily, but pulling it off means depending on an buggy version of the game that fails to load some areas. Like everything else, he has a technical solution for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then updates the software partway through to make sure it begins working properly.

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Other Hurdles

Curiously, the prologue form of the hero is coded so that he is unable to break any tools he uses, presumably to avoid a scenario where the player gets trapped at the beginning of the adventure. But that's also how the streamer gets around the durability problem, as the Link he pulls across universes is the version from the start of the game. It's a clever technique, but not a method that eliminates all possible difficulty. The branch is nonetheless a ineffective item that makes battles onerous. But at that stage, it's entirely a question of grit and dedication. It further helps that there's a copying exploit that gives him an abundant supply of items to boost his attack, or stock up on revival fairies. He additionally makes use of a glitch that allows him to phase through the environment. A few would consider these means reason to question the legitimacy of the run, but to my view, he's a resourceful gamer who is ready to do whatever it takes to entertain his audience. He also implements a penalty of kinds stipulating that, for every spirit he employs, he'll ban one fan from his Twitch chat, creating an incentive to not overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Final Showdown

PointCrow succeeds to defeat several of the game's main enemies, but the fights look painful. The video edit of his journey doesn't make the viewer sit through the entire conflicts, which is a blessing when a few of them last several hours. One enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, takes an astonishing twenty-three straight. The Ganondorf showdown, which depletes Link's hearts as it unfolds, is a memorable nail-biter. The unbreakable branch is still just a stick. He is unable to always clone objects during the fight.

Did he succeed? Technically, he manages to overcome the beast form of the antagonist. But the game forces the player to wield the Master Sword as the last strike, so technically, it's not fully a branch-exclusive playthrough. But where's the challenge in that?

In the end, PointCrow removed over 1,000 users in his Twitch chat. Rest in peace.