Twitch Star Spends 37 Straight Attempting to Beat <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a One Branch

You might assume that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have exhausted novel self-imposed challenges that apply special restrictions on a playthrough. However, although numerous players have tried to complete Tears of the Kingdom using only a stick, content creator PointCrow stands out as the individual who aimed to clear the adventure with a single branch—specifically, the exact same one from start to finish.

PointCrow is renowned for such difficult playthroughs, like the instance he played the title solely with explosives or the attempt where he aimed to defeat the game with zero stamina. A one-branch run, though, sounds unfeasible at first glance. There's the game's introduction, which forces Link to use the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the entire weapon wear mechanic, which is especially relevant when working with the weakest tool in the entire world. But if the stick breaks, that's it. It's over.

So, How?

So, how? The straightforward answer is glitches. The full answer, I kid you not, is alternate dimensions. Apparently, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have separate playthroughs that affect one another. So the creator creates a “setup” save where he progresses normally, and the real save, where he's limited. The setup save has him going through the prologue and first tutorial island, and this Link gains maximum endurance and hearts. From here, he triggers a cinematic and halts midway through to tell the game to load an auto-save from the stick file. The system gets mixed up and generates a third game file that merges the conditions of the original two.

This causes new issues, though. The fused save file has a protagonist that never obtain the ability to access sacred places. Fortunately, this is something that the file exploit addresses readily, but pulling it off means relying on an unstable version of the title that refuses to load certain areas. As with other obstacles, he has a clever workaround for it: He starts the game on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then patches the software midway through to make sure it begins working properly.

Overcoming Durability and Other Challenges

Interestingly, the introductory version of Link is coded so that he cannot break any weapons he uses, presumably to avoid a situation where the user gets stuck at the start of the adventure. But that's also how PointCrow gets around the durability problem, as the character he pulls between universes is the one from the beginning of the story. It's a clever trick, but not one that eliminates all potential difficulty. The stick is still a ineffective weapon that makes battles onerous. But at that stage, it's all a matter of determination and perseverance. It also aids that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an plentiful supply of consumables to boost his strength, or stock up on healing spirits. He additionally employs a glitch that allows Link to phase through the world. Some would consider these methods reason to discredit the legitimacy of the attempt, but to my view, he's a inventive player who is willing to do whatever it takes to entertain his audience. He also uses a safeguard of sorts stipulating that, for every fairy he employs, he'll ban a viewer from his live stream, establishing an motivation to not overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Final Encounter

PointCrow manages to get through many of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the battles look grueling. The video edit of his journey doesn't make the viewer endure the whole fights, which is a blessing when a few of them take several long hours. A particular boss fight, Queen Gibdo, requires an astonishing twenty-three hours. The final villain showdown, which depletes the hero's hearts as it unfolds, is a notable tense moment. The unbreakable branch is still just a piece of wood. He can't necessarily duplicate objects during the battle.

Did he succeed? Technically, PointCrow does defeat the dragon version of the antagonist. But the software compels the player to wield the legendary weapon as the last attack, so technically, it's not completely a branch-exclusive run. But what fun is that?

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