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

One could think that two years post-launch since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have run out of novel self-imposed challenges that impose special rules on a gameplay session. Yet, although many gamers have attempted to finish the game using just a stick, streamer the streamer stands out as the individual who aimed to beat the adventure with a single branch—meaning, the exact same one throughout.

The streamer is renowned for such difficult playthroughs, such as the time he played the game using only bombs or the attempt where he tried to defeat the story with zero energy. A one-branch playthrough, however, sounds unfeasible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which requires the hero to wield the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the whole durability system, which is particularly relevant when dealing with the weakest tool in the entire game. Yet if the branch breaks, that's it. It's over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The straightforward explanation is exploits. The complete story, I kid you not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have distinct game sessions that impact one another. So the creator does a “preparation” file where he advances standardly, and the real file, where he's restricted. The preparatory file has him going through the prologue and first starting area, and this Link gains maximum endurance and health. From this point, he triggers a cutscene and halts partway through to tell the game to open an auto-save from the stick file. The system gets mixed up and creates a new game file that combines the conditions of the original two.

That causes new problems, however. The fused file has a Link that never obtain the ability to access sacred places. Luckily, this is an issue that the file exploit fixes readily, but executing it means depending on an buggy build of the game that fails to load certain locations. As with other obstacles, he has a technical workaround for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its early 1.0 build, and then updates the game midway through to ensure it starts functioning correctly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Other Hurdles

Curiously, the prologue version of the hero is coded so that he cannot break any weapons he wields, presumably to avoid a scenario where the player gets trapped at the beginning of the game. But that's also how PointCrow bypasses the wear issue, as the Link he transfers between universes is the one from the start of the story. It's a smart technique, but not one that eliminates all potential difficulty. The stick is nonetheless a ineffective weapon that renders battles tedious. But at that point, it's entirely a matter of determination and perseverance. It also helps that there's a copying exploit that gives him an abundant supply of consumables to improve his attack, or stock up on healing spirits. He additionally makes use of a glitch that allows Link to clip through the environment. A few would find these methods reason to question the legitimacy of the run, but in my mind, he's a inventive gamer who is willing to do whatever it takes to engage his viewer. He further uses a safeguard of kinds stipulating that, for every spirit he uses, he'll remove a fan from his live stream, creating an motivation to not depend too much on them.

Major Battles and the Final Encounter

PointCrow succeeds to defeat many of the game's bosses, but the fights look grueling. The YouTube edit of his journey spares the viewer endure the entire conflicts, which is a blessing when a few of them last several long hours. A particular boss fight, a powerful foe, requires an astonishing twenty-three straight. The final villain battle, which depletes Link's health as it progresses, is a notable tense moment. The unbreakable stick is after all only a stick. He can't necessarily duplicate items during the battle.

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

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