Twitch Star Spends 37 Hours 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 The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, enthusiasts would have run out of novel self-imposed challenges that apply unique rules on a playthrough. Yet, while numerous players have tried to complete the game with just a wooden stick, content creator PointCrow stands out as the player who endeavored to beat the adventure with a single branch—specifically, the exact same stick throughout.

The streamer is renowned for these kinds of challenge runs, like the instance he went through the title using only explosives or the effort where he aimed to beat the story with zero energy. A one-branch playthrough, though, seems impossible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which forces Link to use the legendary blade. Then, there's the whole weapon wear system, which is especially important when working with the weakest tool in the whole world. But if the branch shatters, that's the end. It's over.

The Method Behind the Madness

So, how? The straightforward answer is glitches. The full story, I kid you not, is alternate dimensions. It turns out, you can manipulate the game's save file system to have distinct game sessions that affect one another. So the creator does a “setup” file where he progresses standardly, and the real file, where he's limited. The setup file has him going through the prologue and initial tutorial island, and this Link acquires full endurance and health. From here, he triggers a cinematic and halts partway through to instruct the software to open an auto-save from the stick file. The game gets mixed up and generates a third game file that combines the conditions of the original two.

This causes fresh issues, however. The fused save file has a protagonist that never obtain the ability to enter sacred places. Fortunately, this is something that the file exploit fixes easily, but pulling it off means depending on an buggy build of the game that fails to load some areas. Like other obstacles, he has a technical solution for it: He starts Tears of the Kingdom on its early 1.0 build, and then patches the game midway through to ensure it begins functioning correctly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Additional Challenges

Interestingly, the introductory version of Link is coded so that he is unable to damage any weapons he wields, presumably to avoid a scenario where the user gets stuck at the beginning of the adventure. But that's additionally how PointCrow gets around the wear issue, as the Link he pulls across universes is the one from the start of the story. It's a clever trick, but not a method that eradicates all possible difficulty. The branch is still a ineffective item that makes encounters onerous. But at that stage, it's entirely a matter of grit and dedication. It also helps that there's a duplication glitch that grants him an abundant supply of items to boost his strength, or stock up on healing spirits. He additionally makes use of a bug that enables Link to phase through the world. Some would consider these methods grounds to discredit the legitimacy of the run, but to my view, he's a inventive player who is willing to do anything necessary to engage his viewer. He also implements a penalty of sorts stating that, for every spirit he uses, he'll ban a viewer from his live stream, establishing an motivation to not depend too much on them.

Major Battles and the Final Showdown

PointCrow succeeds to defeat many of Tears of the Kingdom's main enemies, but the battles look painful. The video edit of his quest spares the audience sit through the whole fights, which is a good thing when a few of them take several long hours. One enemy encounter, Queen Gibdo, takes an incredible 23 straight. The final villain showdown, which depletes the hero's health as it progresses, is a memorable nail-biter. The unbreakable branch is after all just a piece of wood. He can't always clone items midway the battle.

So, is it possible? Technically, he does defeat the dragon version of the antagonist. But the software compels the player to wield the legendary weapon as the last attack, so strictly speaking, it's not quite fully a stick-only run. But what fun is that?

In the end, the streamer removed over a thousand users in his live stream. RIP.