Twitch Star Dedicates 37 Straight Attempting to Beat <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a One Branch

One could think that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, fans would have run out of creative challenge runs that apply unique restrictions on a gameplay session. However, while numerous gamers have attempted to finish Tears of the Kingdom using only a wooden stick, streamer PointCrow stands out as the player who aimed to clear the adventure with a one branch—meaning, the very same stick from start to finish.

PointCrow is famous for these kinds of difficult playthroughs, such as the time he went through the game solely with bombs or the effort where he aimed to defeat the story with zero energy. A one-branch run, though, seems impossible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which requires the hero to use the Master Sword. Additionally, there's the entire durability system, which is especially important when working with the weakest tool in the entire game. But if the stick shatters, that's it. It's over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The simple answer is exploits. The full story, I kid you not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can tweak the game's save file system to have distinct playthroughs that affect one another. So PointCrow creates a “setup” save where he advances normally, and the actual file, where he's restricted. The setup save has him going through the intro and first tutorial island, and this character acquires maximum endurance and hearts. From here, he starts a cinematic and halts partway through to instruct the software to open an auto-save from the branch-only file. The system gets confused and generates a third save file that combines the states of the original two.

That causes fresh problems, though. The fused save file has a Link that never obtain the capability to enter shrines. Luckily, this is something that the save glitch addresses easily, but pulling it off means depending on an unstable build of the game that fails to load certain areas. Like everything else, he has a technical workaround for it: He starts the game on its pre-release version 1.0, and then patches the software partway through to make sure it starts functioning correctly.

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Additional Challenges

Interestingly, the introductory form of Link is programmed so that he is unable to damage any weapons he wields, presumably to avoid a situation where the player gets trapped at the beginning of the game. But that's also how PointCrow bypasses the durability problem, as the character he transfers between universes is the one from the start of the game. It's a clever technique, but not a method that eliminates all potential difficulty. The stick is nonetheless a weak weapon that renders encounters tedious. But at that point, it's all a question of determination and dedication. It also aids that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an plentiful number of consumables to boost his strength, or accumulate on revival fairies. He also makes use of a bug that enables Link to phase through the world. Some would find these methods reason to discredit the legitimacy of the run, but in my mind, he's a resourceful player who is ready to do whatever it takes to entertain his viewer. He further uses a penalty of kinds stating that, for every fairy he uses, he'll remove one fan from his live stream, establishing an motivation to not depend too much on them.

Major Battles and the Last Encounter

PointCrow manages to get through several of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the fights look painful. The YouTube version of his quest doesn't make the viewer endure the entire conflicts, which is a blessing when a few of them last several hours. One enemy encounter, a powerful foe, takes an astonishing twenty-three hours. The Ganondorf battle, which depletes the hero's hearts as it progresses, is a memorable tense moment. The indestructible branch is still just a stick. He can't always duplicate objects during the fight.

Did he succeed? Technically, he does overcome the beast form of Ganon. But the software forces the user to wield the Master Sword as the last strike, so technically, it's not fully a branch-exclusive run. But what fun is that?

In the end, PointCrow removed more than a thousand users in his live stream. RIP.