Twitch Star Spends Thirty-Seven Straight Attempting to Conquer <em>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 exhausted novel self-imposed challenges that impose unique rules on a gameplay session. However, although many players have tried to finish Tears of the Kingdom using just a wooden stick, content creator PointCrow stands out as the individual who endeavored to clear the adventure with a single branch—specifically, the very same one from start to finish.

The streamer is famous for such challenge runs, like the instance he played the title solely with explosives or the effort where he tried to beat the game with no stamina. A one-branch playthrough, however, sounds unfeasible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which requires Link to wield the legendary blade. Then, there's the entire weapon wear system, which is particularly important when dealing with the most fragile tool in the whole game. But if the branch breaks, that's it. It's over.

The Method Behind the Madness

So, how? The straightforward explanation is exploits. The complete answer, I kid you not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have separate playthroughs that impact one another. So the creator does a “preparation” file where he progresses standardly, and the actual file, where he's restricted. The setup file has him completing the intro and first tutorial island, and this character acquires full endurance and hearts. From this point, he triggers a cinematic and pauses midway through to instruct the game to load an auto-save from the branch-only file. The system gets confused and generates a new game file that combines the conditions of the first two files.

That creates new problems, however. The merged save file has a protagonist that never obtain the capability to enter shrines. Fortunately, this is something that the file exploit fixes easily, but pulling it off means depending on an unstable build of the title that fails to load some locations. Like everything else, he has a clever workaround for it: He starts Tears of the Kingdom on its early version 1.0, and then updates the software partway through to ensure it starts functioning correctly.

Overcoming Durability and Other Challenges

Curiously, the prologue form of the hero is programmed so that he cannot damage any weapons he uses, presumably to prevent a situation where the user gets stuck at the beginning of the game. But that's also how PointCrow gets around the wear problem, as the Link he transfers across universes is the one from the beginning of the story. It's a clever trick, but not one that eradicates all possible difficulty. The stick is still a ineffective weapon that makes encounters tedious. But at that point, it's all a question of determination and dedication. It also helps that there's a copying exploit that grants him an plentiful number of items to improve his attack, or stock up on revival fairies. He additionally employs a glitch that allows Link to phase through the environment. Some would find these methods reason to discredit the validity of the run, but in my mind, he's a inventive gamer who is willing to do anything necessary to engage his audience. He further uses a penalty of kinds stipulating that, for each spirit he employs, he'll remove a fan from his Twitch chat, establishing an incentive to avoid overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Showdown

PointCrow succeeds to defeat many of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the battles appear grueling. The video edit of his journey doesn't make the viewer sit through the entire conflicts, which is a good thing when a few of them last several long hours. One enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, requires an astonishing twenty-three straight. The Ganondorf showdown, which depletes the hero's health as it unfolds, is a memorable nail-biter. The unbreakable branch is still only a stick. He is unable to always clone objects during the battle.

So, is it possible? Technically, PointCrow does overcome the dragon version of the antagonist. But the game compels the user to wield the Master Sword as the final strike, so strictly speaking, it's not quite completely a branch-exclusive playthrough. But what fun is that?

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