Twitch Star Dedicates Thirty-Seven Straight Trying to Beat <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a One Branch

You might assume that two years post-launch since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrived, enthusiasts would have exhausted creative challenge runs that impose special restrictions on a playthrough. However, although numerous players have tried to finish the game with just a stick, streamer the streamer stands out as the individual who aimed to beat the adventure with a one branch—specifically, the exact same stick throughout.

The streamer is famous for such difficult playthroughs, like the instance he played the title using only bombs or the effort where he aimed to defeat the story with zero energy. A one-branch run, though, sounds unfeasible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which forces Link to use the legendary blade. Then, there's the whole durability mechanic, which is particularly relevant when dealing with the weakest tool in the whole game. Yet if the branch shatters, that's it. Game over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The simple explanation is glitches. The complete answer, believe it or not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have separate playthroughs that affect one another. So PointCrow creates a “preparation” save where he progresses standardly, and the real file, where he's restricted. The setup file has him going through the intro and first starting area, and this Link gains full endurance and health. From here, he triggers a cinematic and halts partway through to instruct the game to load an auto-save from the branch-only file. The system gets mixed up and generates a new game file that merges the conditions of the first two files.

This causes new problems, however. The merged file has a protagonist that never acquired the ability to access shrines. Luckily, this is something that the file exploit addresses easily, but pulling it off means depending on an buggy version of the title that refuses to open some locations. As with everything else, he has a technical workaround for it: He begins the game on its early 1.0 build, and then patches the game midway through to make sure it begins working properly.

Overcoming Durability and Other Hurdles

Interestingly, the prologue form of Link is coded so that he is unable to break any tools he wields, likely to prevent a situation where the player gets trapped at the start of the game. But that's additionally how PointCrow bypasses the durability issue, as the Link he pulls across dimensions is the version from the start of the story. It's a clever technique, but not a method that eliminates all possible difficulty. The branch is nonetheless a ineffective weapon that makes encounters tedious. But at that stage, it's all a question of grit and perseverance. It also aids that there's a copying exploit that grants him an abundant supply of consumables to improve his attack, or accumulate on revival fairies. He also employs a bug that enables him to phase through the environment. Some would consider these methods grounds to question the legitimacy of the run, but in my mind, he's a resourceful gamer who is ready to do whatever it takes to engage his audience. He further uses a safeguard of sorts stating that, for every fairy he uses, he'll ban a fan from his Twitch chat, establishing an motivation to avoid depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Last Showdown

PointCrow manages to defeat many of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the fights look grueling. The video version of his journey doesn't make the audience sit through the whole fights, which is a blessing when a few of them last multiple long hours. One boss fight, a powerful foe, requires an incredible 23 straight. The final villain battle, which depletes Link's health as it progresses, is a notable tense moment. The unbreakable branch is still only a stick. He is unable to always duplicate items midway the battle.

Did he succeed? In a matter of speaking, he manages to overcome the beast form of the antagonist. But the software forces the player to use the Master Sword as the final attack, so strictly speaking, it's not completely a branch-exclusive playthrough. But what fun is that?

In the end, the streamer removed over 1,000 users in his live stream. Rest in peace.