Streaming Personality Spends 37 Hours Trying to Beat <em>The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom</em> Using a Single Branch

One could think that after two years since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom debuted, fans would have exhausted creative self-imposed challenges that apply unique rules on a playthrough. Yet, while many players have tried to finish Tears of the Kingdom with just a stick, streamer PointCrow holds the record as the player who endeavored to clear the game with a one branch—meaning, the exact same one throughout.

The streamer is famous for such difficult playthroughs, like the time he went through the game solely with bombs or the effort where he aimed to defeat the story with no stamina. A one-branch run, though, sounds unfeasible at face value. There's the game's introduction, which forces Link to wield the legendary blade. Additionally, there's the whole weapon wear system, which is especially relevant when working with the most fragile weapon in the whole game. Yet if the branch breaks, that's the end. Game over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The simple explanation is exploits. The complete story, I kid you not, is parallel universes. Apparently, you can manipulate the game's save file system to have distinct playthroughs that affect one another. So PointCrow does a “preparation” file where he advances normally, and the real save, where he's limited. The setup file has him going through the prologue and first starting area, and this Link acquires maximum stamina and health. From this point, he triggers a cutscene and pauses partway through to instruct the software to open an auto-save from the branch-only file. The system gets confused and creates a new game file that combines the states of the first two files.

That causes new issues, however. The fused file has a protagonist that did not acquired the ability to enter sacred places. Fortunately, this is something that the save glitch addresses easily, but executing it means depending on an unstable version of the game that refuses to load certain areas. Like everything else, he has a clever workaround for it: He begins Tears of the Kingdom on its pre-release 1.0 build, and then patches the game midway through to ensure it begins working properly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Other Hurdles

Interestingly, the introductory version of Link is programmed so that he cannot break any weapons he wields, presumably to avoid a scenario where the user gets stuck at the beginning of the adventure. But that's also how PointCrow bypasses the wear issue, as the Link he transfers between universes is the version from the start of the story. It's a smart trick, but not a method that eradicates all potential difficulty. The stick is nonetheless a ineffective item that renders battles tedious. But at that point, it's all a matter of determination and dedication. It further helps that there's a copying exploit that grants him an abundant number of items to boost his attack, or accumulate on revival fairies. He also employs a bug that allows him to clip through the environment. A few would consider these methods grounds to discredit the legitimacy of the run, but to my view, he's a resourceful gamer who is willing to do anything necessary to entertain his viewer. He further uses a penalty of sorts stipulating that, for each fairy he uses, he'll remove a fan from his live stream, creating an incentive to avoid overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Last Encounter

The streamer manages to defeat many of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the fights look painful. The video edit of his journey doesn't make the audience sit through the whole conflicts, which is a good thing when a few of them take several hours. One boss fight, a powerful foe, takes an astonishing 23 hours. The final villain showdown, which depletes Link's health as it unfolds, is a notable tense moment. The unbreakable branch is still only a piece of wood. He can't always duplicate items midway the fight.

So, is it possible? Technically, he manages to overcome the dragon version of Ganon. But the software compels the player to wield the Master Sword as the final strike, so technically, it's not quite fully a stick-only run. But where's the challenge in that?

When everything is said and done, PointCrow banned over 1,000 users in his Twitch chat. RIP.