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

You might assume that after two years since Tears of the Kingdom debuted, fans would have exhausted novel self-imposed challenges that apply unique restrictions on a gameplay session. Yet, although numerous players have attempted to complete the game using just a stick, content creator PointCrow holds the record as the player who aimed to clear the game with a single branch—meaning, the exact same one throughout.

PointCrow is famous for these kinds of difficult playthroughs, such as the instance he played the title using only bombs or the effort where he aimed to defeat the game with zero energy. A one-branch playthrough, however, sounds unfeasible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which requires Link to wield the Master Sword. Then, there's the whole weapon wear mechanic, which is especially relevant when working with the most fragile weapon in the entire game. Yet if the stick shatters, that's it. Game over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The simple answer is glitches. The full answer, I kid you not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can tweak the game's save file system to have distinct game sessions that affect one another. So PointCrow creates a “preparation” file where he progresses standardly, and the real save, where he's limited. The setup file has him completing the prologue and first starting area, and this character acquires full endurance and hearts. From here, he starts a cinematic and pauses partway through to instruct the game to load an automatic save from the branch-only file. The system gets mixed up and generates a third save file that merges the states of the original two.

This causes fresh issues, however. The fused save file has a protagonist that never obtain the ability to access shrines. Luckily, this is something that the file exploit fixes easily, but pulling it off means depending on an unstable version of the game that fails to load certain locations. As with other obstacles, he has a technical workaround for it: He begins the game on its early 1.0 build, and then updates the game partway through to make sure it starts working properly.

Bypassing Durability and Additional Hurdles

Curiously, the prologue version of the hero is coded so that he is unable to damage any weapons he wields, presumably to avoid a situation where the user gets stuck at the start of the game. But that's additionally how PointCrow gets around the durability issue, as the Link he pulls across universes is the version from the start of the game. It's a smart technique, but not one that eradicates all potential difficulty. The stick is nonetheless a ineffective weapon that renders battles onerous. But at that stage, it's entirely a question of determination and dedication. It further helps that there's a duplication glitch that gives him an plentiful supply of consumables to improve his strength, or stock up on revival fairies. He also makes use of a bug that enables Link to clip through the environment. A few would consider these methods grounds to discredit the legitimacy of the run, but in my mind, he's a resourceful player who is ready to do anything necessary to engage his viewer. He also implements a penalty of kinds stating that, for each fairy he uses, he'll ban one fan from his Twitch chat, establishing an incentive to avoid overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Last Encounter

The streamer succeeds to get through many of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the fights appear painful. The video edit of his quest doesn't make the viewer sit through the entire fights, which is a blessing when some of them last several hours. One boss fight, a powerful foe, takes an incredible twenty-three hours. The Ganondorf battle, which erases Link's hearts as it unfolds, is a notable tense moment. The indestructible stick is after all just a stick. He can't always duplicate objects during the fight.

Did he succeed? Technically, PointCrow manages to defeat the beast form of the antagonist. But the game forces the player to wield the Master Sword as the last attack, so technically, it's not completely a stick-only run. But what fun is that?

In the end, the streamer removed over a thousand people in his Twitch chat. RIP.