Twitch Star Dedicates Thirty-Seven Straight Attempting 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 arrived, enthusiasts would have exhausted creative self-imposed challenges that apply unique restrictions on a playthrough. However, while many players have tried to finish Tears of the Kingdom with only a wooden stick, content creator PointCrow holds the record as the player who aimed to clear the adventure with a one stick—meaning, the exact same one throughout.

PointCrow is renowned for these kinds of difficult playthroughs, such as the time he went through the game solely with bombs or the attempt where he tried to beat the story with zero stamina. A one-branch run, however, sounds impossible at first glance. There's the game's introduction, which requires the hero to use the Master Sword. Then, there's the entire weapon wear system, which is especially relevant when dealing with the most fragile weapon in the entire game. But if the branch shatters, that's the end. Game over.

The Method Behind the Madness

So, how? The simple answer is glitches. The full story, I kid you not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can manipulate Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have distinct game sessions that affect one another. So PointCrow does a “setup” file where he progresses normally, and the actual file, where he's limited. The setup file has him going through the intro and first starting area, and this character gains full endurance and health. From here, he starts a cutscene and halts midway through to tell the game to load an automatic save from the branch-only file. The game gets mixed up and creates a third save file that combines the states of the original two.

That creates fresh problems, though. The merged file has a Link that did not obtain the ability to access sacred places. Luckily, this is an issue that the save glitch addresses easily, but executing it means relying on an unstable build of the game that refuses to open some locations. Like everything else, he has a clever solution for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its early version 1.0, and then updates the game partway through to ensure it starts functioning correctly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Other Challenges

Interestingly, the prologue version of the hero is coded so that he is unable to break any weapons he uses, likely to avoid a situation where the player gets trapped at the beginning of the game. But that's also how PointCrow bypasses the wear issue, as the character he transfers between dimensions is the version from the beginning of the story. It's a clever trick, but not a method that eradicates all potential difficulty. The stick is still a weak weapon that makes battles onerous. But at that stage, it's entirely a question of grit and perseverance. It further helps that there's a copying exploit that gives him an abundant supply of items to improve his strength, or stock up on revival fairies. He also employs a bug that allows him to clip through the environment. A few would consider these methods reason to question the validity of the run, but in my mind, he's a inventive player who is ready to do anything necessary to entertain his viewer. He also implements a penalty of kinds stipulating that, for each fairy he uses, he'll ban a fan from his Twitch chat, establishing an motivation to not depend too much on them.

Major Battles and the Final Showdown

The streamer succeeds to get through several of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the fights look grueling. The YouTube version of his quest doesn't make the viewer endure the whole conflicts, which is a good thing when a few of them take multiple hours. A particular enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, requires an astonishing twenty-three straight. The Ganondorf showdown, which depletes Link's health as it progresses, is a memorable nail-biter. The indestructible branch is still only a stick. He is unable to always duplicate objects midway the fight.

Did he succeed? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow does overcome the dragon version of the antagonist. But the game forces the player to wield the Master Sword as the final attack, so technically, it's not completely a branch-exclusive run. But where's the challenge in that?

In the end, the streamer banned more than a thousand people in his live stream. Rest in peace.