Streaming Star Dedicates Thirty-Seven Straight Attempting to Conquer <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a Single Branch

You might assume that two years post-launch since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrived, enthusiasts would have run out of novel self-imposed challenges that impose unique restrictions on a playthrough. However, although numerous players have attempted to complete the game using only a stick, streamer the streamer stands out as the individual who endeavored to beat the adventure with a one branch—specifically, the very same stick from start to finish.

The streamer is famous for such difficult playthroughs, such as the time he played the title solely with explosives or the effort where he aimed to defeat the game with no energy. A one-branch playthrough, though, sounds unfeasible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which requires Link to wield the legendary blade. Then, there's the entire durability system, which is particularly important when dealing with the weakest weapon in the entire world. Yet if the branch shatters, that's the end. Game over.

So, How?

So, how? The straightforward explanation is exploits. The full story, believe it or not, is alternate dimensions. Apparently, you can tweak the game's save file system to have distinct playthroughs that affect one another. So PointCrow does a “preparation” file where he advances standardly, and the actual save, where he's restricted. The setup file has him going through the intro and first starting area, and this Link acquires full endurance and health. From here, he starts a cutscene and pauses partway through to tell the game to load an auto-save from the branch-only file. The game gets confused and generates a third game file that merges the states of the original two.

That creates fresh issues, however. The fused save file has a protagonist that never acquired the ability to enter shrines. Fortunately, this is something that the save glitch fixes easily, but executing it means relying on an buggy version of the title that refuses to load some locations. As with everything else, he has a clever workaround for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its early version 1.0, and then patches the software partway through to make sure it begins working properly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Additional Hurdles

Interestingly, the prologue version of Link is coded so that he cannot damage any weapons he uses, likely to prevent a situation where the user gets stuck at the start of the adventure. But that's also how the streamer gets around the wear issue, as the Link he pulls across universes is the one from the start of the game. It's a clever trick, but not a method that eliminates all potential difficulty. The stick is nonetheless a weak weapon that renders encounters tedious. But at that stage, it's entirely a matter of determination and dedication. It further helps that there's a copying exploit that grants him an plentiful number of items to improve his attack, or stock up on healing spirits. He also makes use of a bug that allows Link to phase through the world. Some would consider these means grounds to question the validity of the run, but in my mind, he's a resourceful player who is ready to do anything necessary to engage his audience. He further implements a penalty of sorts stipulating that, for every fairy he employs, he'll ban a viewer from his live stream, creating an motivation to not overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Last Encounter

PointCrow succeeds to get through several of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the fights appear grueling. The video edit of his journey doesn't make the audience endure the entire fights, which is a blessing when some of them take several hours. One enemy encounter, a powerful foe, takes an astonishing 23 hours. The Ganondorf showdown, which erases Link's health as it unfolds, is a memorable tense moment. The unbreakable stick is still only a piece of wood. He is unable to always duplicate objects during the fight.

Did he succeed? Technically, PointCrow does defeat the dragon version of Ganon. But the software forces the player to use the Master Sword as the final attack, so technically, it's not quite fully a stick-only run. But where's the challenge in that?

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