Twitch Star Dedicates Thirty-Seven Straight Attempting to Conquer <em>Tears of the Kingdom</em> With Only a Single Branch

One could think that two years post-launch since The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom arrived, enthusiasts would have exhausted novel challenge runs that apply unique restrictions on a playthrough. Yet, while many gamers have attempted to finish the game using just a wooden stick, content creator PointCrow holds the record as the player who endeavored to beat the adventure with a one branch—specifically, the very same one throughout.

The streamer is renowned for such difficult playthroughs, such as the time he went through the title using only bombs or the effort where he tried to defeat the game with no stamina. A single stick run, though, seems impossible at face value. There's the opening sequence, which requires the hero to use the Master Sword. Additionally, there's the whole weapon wear system, which is especially relevant when working with the most fragile weapon in the whole world. But if the branch breaks, that's it. It's over.

So, How?

How did he do it? The simple answer is glitches. The complete story, I kid you not, is alternate dimensions. It turns out, you can tweak Tears of the Kingdom's saving mechanism to have distinct game sessions that affect one another. So PointCrow does a “setup” save where he advances normally, and the actual save, where he's limited. The preparatory file has him completing the prologue and first tutorial island, and this Link gains full stamina and health. From here, he triggers a cutscene and pauses midway through to instruct the game to load an auto-save from the branch-only file. The system gets mixed up and creates a new game file that merges the conditions of the original two.

This creates new problems, however. The merged file has a Link that did not obtain the ability to enter shrines. Luckily, this is an issue that the save glitch addresses readily, but pulling it off means depending on an buggy build of the game that refuses to open some locations. Like everything else, he has a clever solution for it: He starts the game on its early version 1.0, and then updates the software midway through to ensure it begins working properly.

Bypassing Weapon Wear and Additional Hurdles

Curiously, the introductory form of the hero is coded so that he is unable to damage any weapons he wields, likely to prevent a situation where the user gets trapped at the start of the adventure. But that's additionally how the streamer bypasses the durability problem, as the character he pulls across universes is the version from the start of the game. It's a clever technique, but not one that eliminates all possible friction. The branch is still a ineffective item that makes battles onerous. But at that stage, it's all a matter of determination and perseverance. It also aids that there's a duplication glitch that gives him an plentiful number of items to boost his attack, or accumulate on revival fairies. He additionally makes use of a glitch that allows Link to clip through the world. Some would consider these means grounds to question the validity of the attempt, but in my mind, he's a resourceful gamer who is willing to do anything necessary to entertain his audience. He also uses a penalty of kinds stating that, for each fairy he uses, he'll ban a fan from his live stream, establishing an motivation to avoid overly rely on them.

Major Battles and the Last Showdown

PointCrow manages to defeat many of Tears of the Kingdom's bosses, but the battles appear painful. The YouTube version of his journey doesn't make the audience endure the entire conflicts, which is a blessing when a few of them last multiple long hours. One enemy encounter, a powerful foe, takes an astonishing twenty-three hours. The Ganondorf showdown, which erases Link's health as it progresses, is a memorable nail-biter. The unbreakable stick is still just a stick. He can't always duplicate objects during the fight.

So, is it possible? In a matter of speaking, he does overcome the dragon version of Ganon. But the game forces the player to wield the legendary weapon as the last strike, so technically, it's not fully a stick-only playthrough. But what fun is that?

When everything is said and done, PointCrow removed over a thousand people in his Twitch chat. RIP.