Twitch Personality Dedicates Thirty-Seven Straight Trying to Conquer <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a Single Branch

One could think that after two years since Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have exhausted creative challenge runs that impose special restrictions on a gameplay session. Yet, while numerous gamers have tried to complete Tears of the Kingdom with only a wooden stick, streamer PointCrow stands out as the player who endeavored to beat the game with a one branch—specifically, the exact same one from start to finish.

PointCrow is famous for these kinds of challenge runs, such as the instance he played the title using only bombs or the attempt where he tried to defeat the game with no energy. A single stick run, though, seems impossible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which requires Link to wield the Master Sword. Additionally, there's the entire weapon wear mechanic, which is particularly relevant when dealing with the weakest weapon in the whole game. Yet if the branch shatters, that's the end. It's over.

So, How?

So, how? The simple answer is glitches. The full story, believe it or not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can tweak 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 advances standardly, and the real file, where he's limited. The preparatory file has him going through the prologue and first starting area, and this character acquires maximum stamina and health. From this point, he triggers a cutscene and halts partway through to instruct the software to open an auto-save from the branch-only file. The system gets confused and creates a new save file that merges the conditions of the first two files.

That creates fresh issues, though. The merged file has a Link that did not acquired the ability to access shrines. Fortunately, this is an issue that the file exploit fixes easily, but pulling it off means relying on an unstable build of the game that refuses to open some locations. Like everything else, he has a technical workaround for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its early version 1.0, and then patches the software midway through to ensure it begins functioning correctly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Additional Hurdles

Interestingly, the introductory form of Link is programmed so that he cannot damage any tools he uses, presumably to prevent a scenario where the player gets stuck at the beginning of the game. But that's additionally how PointCrow bypasses the wear problem, as the character he transfers across universes is the one from the start of the story. It's a clever trick, but not one that eradicates all potential difficulty. The branch is nonetheless a ineffective weapon that makes battles onerous. But at that point, it's all a question of grit and perseverance. It also aids that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an plentiful supply of items to improve his strength, or accumulate on revival fairies. He additionally makes use of a bug that enables Link to phase through the world. A few would find these means reason to discredit the validity of the attempt, but in my mind, he's a resourceful player who is willing to do anything necessary to engage his viewer. He also implements a penalty of sorts stating that, for each spirit he uses, he'll ban one viewer from his Twitch chat, creating an incentive to avoid overly rely on them.

Boss Fights and the Last Showdown

The streamer succeeds to defeat many of the game's main enemies, but the battles look grueling. The YouTube edit of his quest spares the audience endure the whole fights, which is a blessing when a few of them last multiple hours. One enemy encounter, a powerful foe, takes an incredible twenty-three straight. The final villain battle, which depletes Link's health as it progresses, is a memorable tense moment. The indestructible stick is after all only a piece of wood. He is unable to necessarily duplicate objects during the battle.

Did he succeed? Technically, he manages to defeat the beast form of the antagonist. But the software forces the user to use the Master Sword as the last attack, so technically, it's not quite fully a branch-exclusive run. But what fun is that?

In the end, the streamer banned more than a thousand people in his Twitch chat. RIP.