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

You might assume that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrived, fans would have run out of creative challenge runs that impose special rules on a playthrough. However, while many gamers have tried to finish the game using only a wooden stick, content creator PointCrow holds the record as the individual who aimed to clear the adventure with a single branch—meaning, the exact same one throughout.

PointCrow is famous for these kinds of challenge runs, like the time he went through the game using only bombs or the effort where he tried to defeat the game with zero stamina. A one-branch playthrough, though, seems impossible at first glance. There's the game's introduction, which requires the hero to use the legendary blade. Then, there's the whole weapon wear system, which is particularly relevant when working with the most fragile tool in the whole game. Yet if the stick shatters, that's the end. It's over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The straightforward explanation is exploits. The complete story, I kid you not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have distinct playthroughs that affect one another. So the creator creates a “setup” file where he progresses standardly, and the actual file, where he's restricted. The preparatory file has him going through the prologue and initial starting area, and this Link gains maximum endurance and health. From this point, he starts a cinematic and pauses partway through to tell the game to open an automatic save from the stick file. The system gets mixed up and creates a third game file that merges the conditions of the original two.

That creates new issues, though. The merged file has a Link that never acquired the ability to access shrines. Fortunately, this is an issue that the save glitch fixes easily, but executing it means depending on an buggy build of the title that fails to open certain locations. Like other obstacles, he has a technical solution for it: He starts the game on its early version 1.0, and then updates the game midway through to make sure it starts functioning correctly.

Overcoming Weapon Wear and Additional Challenges

Curiously, the prologue version of Link is coded so that he cannot break any weapons he uses, presumably to prevent a scenario where the player gets trapped at the beginning of the game. But that's also how PointCrow gets around the wear problem, as the character he transfers across dimensions is the version from the start of the game. It's a smart trick, but not one that eradicates all potential friction. The branch is nonetheless a weak weapon that renders battles tedious. But at that stage, it's all a matter of determination and perseverance. It also aids that there's a copying exploit that grants him an abundant supply of consumables to boost his attack, or accumulate on revival fairies. He also makes use of a bug that enables Link to phase through the environment. Some would consider these methods reason to question the validity of the run, but in my mind, he's a resourceful gamer who is ready to do anything necessary to entertain his viewer. He also implements a penalty of kinds stipulating that, for each spirit he uses, he'll ban one fan from his Twitch chat, establishing an motivation to avoid depend too much on them.

Major Battles and the Final Encounter

The streamer succeeds to get through several of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the fights appear grueling. The YouTube edit of his quest doesn't make the audience endure the entire fights, which is a blessing when some of them take several hours. A particular boss fight, Queen Gibdo, requires an astonishing twenty-three hours. The final villain battle, which depletes Link's hearts as it unfolds, is a memorable nail-biter. The indestructible branch is still just a piece of wood. He is unable to necessarily duplicate items midway the fight.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, he does overcome the dragon version of Ganon. But the software forces the user to wield the Master Sword as the last strike, so technically, it's not quite completely a branch-exclusive run. But where's the challenge in that?

When everything is said and done, the streamer removed over a thousand users in his Twitch chat. Rest in peace.