Twitch Personality Spends Thirty-Seven Hours Trying to Conquer <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a One Branch

One could think that after two years since Tears of the Kingdom arrived, enthusiasts would have run out of creative challenge runs that apply unique restrictions on a playthrough. Yet, while numerous players have attempted to complete the game with just a stick, content creator PointCrow holds the record as the player who endeavored to beat the adventure with a one branch—meaning, the exact same stick from start to finish.

The streamer is renowned for such difficult playthroughs, like the instance he played the title solely with explosives or the effort where he aimed to defeat the story with no stamina. A single stick run, however, sounds impossible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which forces Link to wield the legendary blade. Then, there's the entire durability system, which is particularly important when working with the most fragile weapon in the entire game. Yet if the stick shatters, that's the end. Game over.

So, How?

So, how? The simple answer is exploits. The complete answer, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. Apparently, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have distinct playthroughs that affect one another. So the creator creates a “setup” save where he progresses standardly, and the real save, where he's restricted. The preparatory file has him completing the prologue and initial starting area, and this character gains maximum stamina and health. From here, he starts a cutscene and halts midway through to instruct the software to load an auto-save from the stick file. The system gets confused and creates a third game file that combines the conditions of the original two.

That creates new issues, however. The merged file has a protagonist that never acquired the capability to access sacred places. Fortunately, this is something that the file exploit addresses readily, but executing it means relying on an unstable version of the title that fails to load certain areas. As with other obstacles, he has a clever solution for it: He starts the game on its pre-release version 1.0, and then patches the software partway through to make sure it begins working properly.

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Other Hurdles

Curiously, the introductory version of Link is programmed so that he is unable to break any weapons he uses, likely to prevent a scenario where the player gets stuck at the start of the adventure. But that's also how the streamer bypasses the durability issue, as the character he transfers between universes is the one from the start of the story. It's a smart technique, but not a method that eradicates all potential friction. The branch is still a weak weapon that makes encounters tedious. But at that stage, it's all a matter of determination and perseverance. It also helps that there's a duplication glitch that gives him an abundant supply of items to improve his attack, or stock up on revival fairies. He also makes use of a glitch that enables him to phase through the world. A few would find these means grounds to question the legitimacy of the run, but to my view, he's a resourceful gamer who is ready to do anything necessary to engage his viewer. He further implements a safeguard of kinds stipulating that, for every spirit he uses, he'll ban one fan from his live stream, establishing an incentive to not overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Last Showdown

PointCrow manages to defeat several of the game's bosses, but the battles appear grueling. The YouTube edit of his journey spares the viewer sit through the whole fights, which is a good thing when a few of them take multiple hours. A particular enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, takes an incredible twenty-three hours. The final villain showdown, which erases the hero's health as it progresses, is a notable nail-biter. The unbreakable branch is after all only a piece of wood. He can't necessarily duplicate objects during the fight.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow manages to defeat the beast form of Ganon. But the software forces the user to use the legendary weapon as the last strike, so strictly speaking, it's not completely a branch-exclusive run. But what fun is that?

In the end, PointCrow removed over 1,000 people in his live stream. RIP.