Twitch Star Dedicates Thirty-Seven Hours Attempting to Beat <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a Single Branch

You might assume that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, fans would have run out of creative challenge runs that apply special rules on a gameplay session. Yet, although many players have tried to complete the game with just a wooden stick, content creator the streamer stands out as the individual who endeavored to clear the adventure with a single branch—meaning, the exact same stick throughout.

PointCrow is renowned for these kinds of challenge runs, like the instance he went through the game using only bombs or the effort where he aimed to beat the story with zero energy. A single stick run, though, seems impossible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which forces the hero to use the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the entire durability mechanic, which is particularly important when working with the most fragile weapon in the whole world. Yet if the branch shatters, that's it. It's over.

The Method Behind the Madness

So, how? The simple answer is glitches. The complete answer, I kid you not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have distinct playthroughs that impact one another. So PointCrow does a “setup” file where he advances normally, and the actual file, where he's restricted. The preparatory file has him going through the intro and first tutorial island, and this Link gains maximum stamina and health. From this point, he triggers a cinematic and halts midway through to instruct the software to load an automatic save from the branch-only file. The system gets mixed up and creates a third game file that combines the states of the original two.

This creates new problems, however. The merged file has a Link that never acquired the capability to enter sacred places. Luckily, this is something that the file exploit fixes easily, but executing it means depending on an buggy version of the title that fails to open certain locations. As with everything else, he has a technical workaround for it: He starts Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then updates the software midway through to ensure it starts working properly.

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Additional Hurdles

Curiously, the prologue form of the hero is coded so that he is unable to break any weapons he uses, likely to avoid a scenario where the user gets stuck at the start of the game. But that's also how the streamer gets around the wear issue, as the character he transfers across universes is the one from the start of the story. It's a smart technique, but not a method that eliminates all potential friction. The stick is still a weak weapon that makes battles onerous. But at that stage, it's all a question of grit and dedication. It also aids that there's a copying exploit that gives him an abundant supply of items to improve his strength, or accumulate on healing spirits. He additionally makes use of a glitch that allows him to phase through the world. Some would consider these methods reason to question the validity of the run, but in my mind, he's a inventive gamer who is ready to do whatever it takes to engage his viewer. He further implements a safeguard of kinds stipulating that, for each spirit he employs, he'll ban a viewer from his Twitch chat, establishing an motivation to avoid depend too much on them.

Major Battles and the Final Showdown

The streamer succeeds to get through many of the game's main enemies, but the fights look painful. The YouTube edit of his quest doesn't make the viewer sit through the whole fights, which is a blessing when a few of them last several long hours. One boss fight, Queen Gibdo, requires an incredible 23 straight. The Ganondorf battle, which erases Link's hearts as it progresses, is a notable nail-biter. The unbreakable branch is after all just a stick. He can't always clone objects midway the battle.

Did he succeed? Technically, he manages to defeat the dragon version of Ganon. But the game compels the player to use the Master Sword as the last strike, so technically, it's not quite completely a branch-exclusive run. But what fun is that?

When everything is said and done, PointCrow banned more than a thousand people in his Twitch chat. RIP.