Streaming Star Spends 37 Straight Trying to Beat <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a Single Branch

One could think that after two years since Tears of the Kingdom debuted, fans would have exhausted creative self-imposed challenges that impose special restrictions on a playthrough. Yet, although numerous gamers have attempted to finish Tears of the Kingdom with only a wooden stick, content creator PointCrow holds the record as the individual who aimed to beat the adventure with a one branch—specifically, the exact same stick throughout.

The streamer is famous for these kinds of challenge runs, such as the instance he played the title using only explosives or the effort where he aimed to defeat the story with zero stamina. A single stick playthrough, though, seems unfeasible at first glance. There's the opening sequence, which requires Link to use the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the whole durability system, which is especially important when working with the weakest weapon in the whole world. But if the branch breaks, that's the end. Game over.

So, How?

So, how? The simple answer is exploits. The full story, I kid you not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have distinct playthroughs that impact one another. So PointCrow does a “setup” save where he advances normally, and the actual file, where he's restricted. The setup file has him completing the intro and first starting area, and this Link gains full endurance and health. From here, he starts a cutscene and pauses partway through to instruct the software to open an auto-save from the branch-only file. The system gets confused and creates a third game file that combines the conditions of the first two files.

That creates fresh issues, though. The fused file has a Link that never obtain the ability to access sacred places. Luckily, this is something that the file exploit fixes readily, but pulling it off means depending on an buggy build of the title that refuses to open some areas. As with other obstacles, he has a clever solution for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then updates the software partway through to ensure it starts functioning correctly.

Bypassing Durability and Additional Hurdles

Curiously, the prologue form of Link is coded so that he cannot damage any tools he wields, presumably to avoid a situation where the user gets stuck at the start of the game. But that's also how the streamer bypasses the wear issue, as the Link he pulls across universes is the version from the start of the story. It's a clever technique, but not one that eradicates all potential difficulty. The stick is nonetheless a ineffective item that makes battles onerous. But at that point, it's entirely a question of grit and dedication. It also aids that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an plentiful number of consumables to boost his attack, or stock up on healing spirits. He also employs a glitch that allows him to clip through the environment. A few would consider these methods grounds to question the legitimacy of the run, but in my mind, he's a resourceful player who is ready to do anything necessary to entertain his audience. He further uses a safeguard of kinds stating that, for each spirit he uses, he'll remove one viewer from his live stream, establishing an motivation to avoid depend too much on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Showdown

The streamer succeeds to get through several of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the fights look painful. The video version of his journey spares the audience endure the whole conflicts, which is a good thing when some of them last multiple long hours. One boss fight, Queen Gibdo, takes an astonishing 23 hours. The Ganondorf battle, which depletes the hero's hearts as it progresses, is a notable nail-biter. The indestructible stick is still just a stick. He is unable to necessarily duplicate objects during the fight.

Did he succeed? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow manages to defeat the dragon version of Ganon. But the game forces the user to wield the Master Sword as the final attack, so strictly speaking, it's not quite completely a branch-exclusive playthrough. But where's the challenge in that?

In the end, the streamer removed more than 1,000 people in his Twitch chat. RIP.