Twitch Personality Dedicates Thirty-Seven Hours Trying 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 debuted, enthusiasts would have run out of creative self-imposed challenges that apply unique rules on a playthrough. Yet, although numerous gamers have tried to finish the game with only a stick, content creator PointCrow holds the record as the player who endeavored to beat the game with a one branch—meaning, the very same one throughout.

PointCrow is famous for these kinds of challenge runs, such as the time he played the title using only bombs or the attempt where he aimed to beat the game with zero energy. A single stick run, however, sounds impossible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which requires the hero to wield the legendary blade. Then, there's the entire weapon wear system, which is particularly relevant when dealing with the weakest tool in the whole game. But if the stick breaks, that's it. It's over.

The Method Behind the Madness

How did he do it? The simple explanation is exploits. The complete answer, I kid you not, is parallel universes. It turns out, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's save file system to have distinct game sessions that impact one another. So PointCrow creates a “preparation” save where he progresses standardly, and the real file, where he's limited. The preparatory file has him going through the prologue and first tutorial island, and this character gains maximum endurance and health. From here, he starts a cinematic and pauses partway through to instruct the game to load an automatic save from the branch-only file. The game gets mixed up and generates a new game file that merges the conditions of the first two files.

This creates new problems, though. The fused save file has a Link that did not obtain the capability to access shrines. Luckily, this is something that the save glitch fixes easily, but pulling it off means depending on an unstable version of the game that fails to load certain locations. As with other obstacles, he has a clever workaround for it: He starts Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then patches the software partway through to ensure it starts functioning correctly.

Overcoming Durability and Additional Hurdles

Curiously, the introductory form of the hero is programmed so that he is unable to damage any tools he wields, likely to avoid a scenario where the player gets stuck at the beginning of the game. But that's also how the streamer bypasses the wear issue, as the Link he transfers across dimensions is the version from the beginning of the story. It's a smart technique, but not a method that eradicates all potential difficulty. The branch is nonetheless a weak weapon that renders battles tedious. But at that stage, it's entirely a question of determination and perseverance. It also helps that there's a copying exploit that gives him an abundant supply of items to improve his strength, or stock up on healing spirits. He also makes use of a bug that allows Link to clip through the environment. Some would find these methods reason to question the legitimacy of the run, but to my view, he's a resourceful player who is ready to do anything necessary to engage his audience. He also uses a penalty of kinds stipulating that, for every spirit he employs, he'll remove one fan from his live stream, creating an incentive to not depend too much on them.

Major Battles and the Final Encounter

PointCrow succeeds to get through many of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the battles appear grueling. The video edit of his quest doesn't make the audience endure the whole fights, which is a blessing when some of them last multiple hours. A particular boss fight, Queen Gibdo, takes an incredible twenty-three hours. The Ganondorf showdown, which depletes Link's hearts as it progresses, is a memorable nail-biter. The indestructible branch is still just a piece of wood. He is unable to always duplicate objects midway the battle.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, PointCrow does overcome the beast form of Ganon. But the game forces the player to use the legendary weapon as the last strike, so strictly speaking, it's not completely a stick-only playthrough. But what fun is that?

In the end, PointCrow removed over a thousand people in his live stream. RIP.